Captain's Log, Star-date: Midsummer Night, 2009
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In Scandinavia, the pagan rituals of
SUMMER SOLSTICE have survived through
1000 years of Christianity and the weekend remains a major cause for
celebration today. Honoring another ancient Nordic tradition,
people use it mainly as an excuse to get deeply drunk, yet on good
years, there is a definite Shakespearian magic in the air on the
longest day in the calendar. I'm not doing
psilocybe mushrooms like last year (see testimony way below),
but am keeping an open mind for spirits wanting to converse. Appropriate music is played, such as THESE TRAILS, EDEN AHBEZ, MU and the recently aquired CHARLIE EARNST, an excellent Neil Young-influenced album that must rank as one of the best X-ian discoveries of the third millennium. Otherwise, I have to say the pickings are getting slim when it comes to new private press discoveries -- I don't think the well is running dry, necessarily, but it's been many months since I got a real 'whoa!' from something unknown. On the other hand, I'm discovering lots of great music lurking among things only given 'placeholder' reviews in the ACID ARCHIVES book, and as an effect of this insight, enthusiastic full-length reviews are currently being produced for rekkids like ETERNITY on Band Of Gold, STAGEFRIGHT'S highly entertaining barn-rocker "D-Day", above average college albums like LATITUDES '73-74 and SO IT GOES, and several others like that. Take my word for it -- there's plenty of gold hidden behind those brief entries in the AA. I mentioned some interesting reissues from Guerssen and Anazitisi last month, and am hoping for more buzz from the vibrant European vinyl reissue scene shortly. A somewhat different experience is offered via the two cool "ELECTRIC ASYLUM" volumes from Past & Present. Any compilation where almost every track is unknown to me is sure to raise my interest, and this series presents a skilfully selected and arranged trip through obscure stoned, weird and funky hardrock 45s from the British (mainly) 1970s. Sounds good at home, and probably even better at a hip club. The same label has also come out with a new run of the classic ACID DREAMS comps ('Testament' and 'Epitaph'), originally released in 1987 as two of the earliest CD comps on the market, and still today among the very best. If you want to get in on rare fuzz garage, acidpunk and early psych 45s, these two volumes are a very good place to start. After some delays, the 13th FLOOR ELEVATORS box-set is finally shipping. The first response among jug-heads on the net seems very enthusiastic, but I'll have to save my comments until next month, as I'm still waiting for my copy to arrive. Speaking of arrive, the GEORGE-EDWARDS vinyl reissue on Drag City landed here the other day, sounding and looking very good. There's even a credit to the Lama on the back cover! As with most things on this label it's selling out fast, and it seems that the "38:38" revival is catching some real momentum, thanks in no small part to the smartness and commitment of the band members.  Trad, Gras & Stenar aka Trees, Grass & Stones Celebrating 20 years in the business, our friends at Subliminal Sounds are going full cycle via new releases from two of Sweden's most legendary 1970s bands, KEBNEKAJSE and TRAD GRAS & STENAR. Both bands stay close to their original sound, with skills and underground vibes intact; Kebnekajse is all instrumental and highlighted by Kenny Hakansson's masterful guitar-playing, with the closing track in particular a psychedelic delight. Trad Gras & Stenar are probably familiar to y'all, and it sounds like 1971 all over again as BoAnders & the guys deliver a double album full of their trademark drone-rock; impressive and a must-have for the band's many fans. The highly active label also has two releases from younger bands coming up; a new album from the Dungen-related folk-psych outfit LIFE ON EARTH, and the debut from intriguing femme folkrock outfit LISA & PIU. In the right-hand column you can see some new additions to the Lama record shelves, but in an even more recent development I've been getting back into EXOTICA in a big way. In the early 1990s we had some great LSD trips with Exotica music and tiki paraphernalia, but then the whole field became 'trendy' and much too crowded, and in my usual contrarian manner, I tuned out. A decade and a half later, with all the bandwagon jumpers gone, I find myself grooving on the marvellously transporting quality of 1950s and early 1960s Exotica, which sounds as trippy or even trippier today than in the psychedelic daze of 1991-92. More on this in a future instalment of the Eternal Now. Until then it's not Aloha, or even Mahalo, but MGANGA!  |
- N A M O A K S H O B H Y A S O H A - 
Here are a few recent Lama purchases, including
a handmade mandala thangka (scroll-painting) from Lhasa. Custom-made for me based on a
18th century mandala of the 'meditation buddha' Akshobhya, this
beautiful item casts its light across the Vajrayana Lounge, where
I spend my days writing and listening to music. |
Tsal Means Expressive Power, acrylic on arches by Patrick Lundborg 2009
Captain's Log, Star-date: Corpus Christi Feast
|
With an atypically warm and sunny Spring
for these latitudes, recent weeks have triggered further decoration
of the new Lama penthouse, now officially named the
VAJRAYANA LOUNGE. Two artificial trees
-- a 5-foot bamboo tree and a large, awesomely exotic Wisteria plant
-- provide an appropriate lounge setting while incense burns and
EDEN AHBEZ music plays over hidden
speakers. As a somewhat surreal bonus, the Wisteria plant on my
balcony was almost immediately appropriated by a sparrow couple, who
built a nest inside where four small sparrow eggs now await
hatching. Apparently, birds have no quarrel about artificial plants,
a fundamentally buddhist outlook entirely in line with the
non-dualist philosophy of the Vajrayana Lounge. |
 First Flush  Second Flush  Third Flush |
Captain's Log, Star-date: Easter Sunday
|
Don't know about you, but I just came in from hanging out on the
balcony for a couple of hours, sipping chai in the sun and blasting
SNAKEGRINDER LIVE (dig some of it
here) for myself and a few unprepared neighbors. We're not used to
having t-shirt temperatures for Easter up on these latitudes, so
better take the opportunity before King Frost returns. Speaking of Easter rituals, I recently came upon a rather interesting piece for the CHRISTIAN YOGA CHURCH puzzle. As you may recall from my review, the story behind this early syncretic organ drone rock trip remains bathed in mystery, even after some serious tracking attempts. However, when reading the highly recommended "Amazing Dope Tales" by STEPHEN GASKIN, my already buzzed attention (this book will trigger acid flashbacks like no other) jumped up another notch when coming upon the chapter heading "Father Christos And The Straight Theater". Now, the Straight Theater was an SF venue that saw some interesting activity during the early freak days, and Father Christos is the dude quoted on the back of the Christian Yoga Church cover, and what might link these two? The answer, most intriguingly, turns out to be KENNETH ANGER. Gaskin writes several pages about this event in his book which I can't quote in full, but basically the story is that he went to the Straight Theater to check out a double-bill Sunday Morning ritual, with Anger (wearing a papier maché Minotaur crown) doing his 'dark arts' thing, and then Father Christos doing his thing, which was a yogic monk lecture. Gaskin was on acid (as he is for 95% of this book) but says that Christos was a nice, well-grounded guy who later visited Gaskin's crashpad commune out in Stinson Beach, and later still had a falling out with his guru MASTER SUBRAMUNIYA, left the Christian Yoga Church for the Navajo desert, and hasn't been seen since. A Christian Yoga Church disciple recently confirmed that there was a shake-up in the church in the late 1960s, and that the "Turn On!!!" LP belongs to an earlier (1967) era. What's the bottom line to all this, you ask? The bottom line is that on top of its rarity, atmosphere, and mystique, the Christian Yoga Church LP is more closely connected to the original San Francisco freak scene than we had realized. Hope you got your copy already, cause they ain't growin' on trees. That was a lot of psychedelic info to take in, so why not let your brain take five and watch H P LOVECRAFT play "The White Ship"? Then see a young Ron Matelic (pre-Anonymous) paint Indianapolis red with SIR WINSTON & THE COMMONS on local TV! Back to our abnormal programming: the past year or two has seen a bit of collector buzz surrounding MIKE CRAIG, a CA/AZ artist who cut two rare LPs in the early 1970s, both of which have traded hands for substantial amounts on eBay and elsewhere. After being tracked down by eager record collectors recently, Craig contacted me to set the record straight regarding these two albums. This information may not sit well with some folks out there, but here in the Eternal Now we believe that the artist is always right. Here's what Mike says (it's him, despite the third person perspective): "Daughter Of The Moon was recorded at Desert Sound recording studio (1973), and released New Years Eve (1974). After the success of Mike’s first album the producers decided that a second album was needed to be put out in a hurry. They determined to take Mike's music in a different direction. The album cover was to be controversial and odd, so artist/model Maggie Blackburn was commissioned; her cover turned out to be odder than was hoped for. There was no time to change it so it went to press. The all female back up band (Cantaloupe Island Band) was brought into the Studio and the album was recorded. In the early 1970’s female bands were considered novelty acts and were not considered to be serious musicians. Mike was frustrated with the direction his music was going in, and by the time the recording was done Mike severed all ties with this band and became reclusive. This album was doomed -- when it went to the record pressing plant the first stampers had a flaw on them and an unknown number were pressed with the flaw in them before their quality control people found it. By this time the producers of the album were mad at Mike for not wanting to work with or go on the road with the girl band. So they pulled their money out, leaving Mike with the rest of the bills. Mike went to the record plant and took the stampers so no more of the albums could be made. The record plant had shipped out possibly 200 of these albums before Mike was able to stop them."
Thanks Mike! Other interesting
correspondence of late includes a Q & A with Dave Scott of rural
rock maestros MODLIN & SCOTT. I've
written about this band several times before, and was delighted to
finally get
their
story. On a vaguely related note, I'm happy to recommend a
recent solo CD from ex-Magi, ex-Long Ryders member
TOM STEVENS. Titled "Home", this is an
excellent collection of classic American wheat field music, a little
like vintage R.E.M at times, but with the Indiana origins on proud
display. Good vocals, strong songs, lots of guitar pyrotechnics...
don't
miss "Home".
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Blue Hum For Tibet, acrylic on arches by Patrick Lundborg 2009
Captain's Log, Star-date: Mardi Gras 2009
|
After having dealt with some time-consuming
matters out in 'reality', we're back to our abnormal programming.
For proof, look no further than
this interview I just did with a nice young lady from San
Francisco, on the pros and cons (what cons?) of collecting
psychedelic music. Apparently, eBay auctions using the 'psych'
keyword are generating so strong action that general antique
collectors are beginning to take note -- at least that's how
she explained it to me. On a somewhat related note, the afore-discussed Galactic Ramble book is now finished and will hit the market in a few weeks. It's kind of like an Acid Archives for British LPs, but thanks to the compact nature of the British scene, there was also room for all the famous acts, alongside the obscure flops and private releases. So there's Beatles and Led Zep side by side with Complex and the Celebrated Ratliffe Stout Band. One cool aspect is the inclusion of old reviews from the original release of the album, certainly helps bring perspective on a lot of £600 rarities. OK, some odds & ends from the Lama mail-box. The obscure GEORGE-EDWARDS album is scheduled for a vinyl reissue on Drag City later this year. This one's certainly seen a meteoric rise in stature, considering that it was basically unknown 6-7 years ago. The band already have a CD reissue out, as mentioned here earlier. I also heard from one of the guys behind the KICKLAND & JOHNSON album, a CSN type trip that is highly rated by some. Here's what the guy (producer J Clemetson) said: "...the Clay County LP was local to Omaha, NE and Southeastern SD. We initially pressed 1000 and then re-ordered another 1000. The second pressing corrected a stereo phasing problem. About 300 copies were stolen."
I also heard from the producer of
TS TRUCK, who forwarded the following:
"...we were from the central Illinois
area. Most of the guys were students at Eastern Ill. University in
Charleston, and were from small towns -- Decatur, Champaign,
Mattoon. There were only 2000 copies ever pressed of the LP." The
guys in Boss-Town's old ORPHEUS got in
touch again, trying to make heads or tails of the
STEVE KACOROWSKI saga -- as you will
recall, the K-Man used a couple of
Orpheus tunes for his unique brand of Karaoke Rock. Another old
Lysergia.com warhorse, the LAGUNA BEACH
HAPPENING story, recently
saw an interesting breakthrough as I finally heard from the main
organizer behind the event, Curtis Reid. Reid contributed some
corrections and additions, which have been worked into yet another
revision of this
long-lived saga. The same week I heard from Reid, the gentleman
who parachuted himself on to the festival site (an event remembered
by almost anyone who visited the Happening) also got in touch. |
S T O N E W A L L Thanks to Miguel Rodriquez in
Germany, the basic story of the mighty STONEWALL
-- responsible for one of the most highly rated hardrock rarities of the
1970s -- can finally be revealed. On the other hand, the guitar
player Ray Dieneman was a good friend of Jimmy Goldstein. Dieneman was not
aware of the Stonewall album until he saw a copy in Goldstein´s house in
New York during a visit. Ray never owned a copy of the album, but was
more amused than angry about the Tiger Lily release. It appears that
Dienemann is the only band member to know about the Stonewall record
being released at all. PS the Stonewall band member names on the Akarma bootleg reissues are completely made up.
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"Wonder" by
Alex Grey, 1996
Captain's
Log, Star-date: Feast Of The Epiphany
|
This will be a short one, as we're still
observing the various Midwinter holidays (any excuse to be lazy is a
good one), and I'm also busy digesting a psilocybin excursion I
undertook on New Year's Eve in order to bring about the New Year
(according to some calendars) with a bang. While the family was
celebrating elsewhere, the shroom and I painted, listened to Donovan
& westcoast rock, and watched the midnight fireworks. Seven hours
well spent. Speaking of painting, the scan above shows my favorite Alex Grey work. I recently bought a glossy poster reproduction of this, which now adorns one of the walls in my new flat. The New York Times recently reported on Alex Grey's unique Chapel Of Sacred Mirrors gallery leaving its NYC location for greener pastures, discussing in passing the secret influence of psychedelic drugs on contemporary art. Not that Mr Grey makes any secret of this particular source of inspiration. Neither does the great Peruvian artist and ex-yagé shaman Pablo Amaringo, who has been covered in the Eternal Now before. I finally managed to locate an original work of Amaringo, which now adorns another wall in my new living room, opposite the Alex Grey reproduction. The feng shui here is definitely going in a tryptamine direction! This painting, which cost me about as much as a Pokora * * * * * * LP, is the only Amaringo I've seen that includes hallucinogen mushrooms alongside his trademark ayahuasca vines and bushes. The title is Callampa Yachay and it can be seen here, along with other Amaringo paintings, some of which are available to purchase. Something
music-related, you say? Well, I've been getting back into UK folk
again, although it's been more a case of revisiting old friends from
druid rings and taverns than discovering anything mindblowingly
great unknown. America still seems the surest bet for turning up
unheard (by me) music of the ages. Thus: "To build the city
of Dioce whose terraces are the colour of stars" |
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Captain's Log, Star-date: Transylvanian Unification Day
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The case for SANTA CLAUS AS AN EARLY MUSHROOM
CULT is fairly strong. As anthropologists have shown, shamanic
use of the Amanita Muscaria mushroom was widespread throughout the
Northern-most regions of the Old World, in regions like Siberia and
Lapland, where it continues to this day. Indeed, the western term
'shaman' is derived from the Siberian word for tribal
healer or witchdoctor. The mythical home of Santa Claus is most frequently placed in Northern Finland, above the Arctic Circle and not far from the NORTH POLE -- and thus right in the middle of shamanistic mushroom activity. The hallucinogenic Amanita Muscaria, popularly referred to as 'fly agaric', is instantly recognizable thanks to its bright red cap, which is ornamented with white flecks and white gills. The association to the RED AND WHITE colors of Santa Claus need not be emphasized. More intriguing, perhaps, is the popular description of Santa Claus' posse of little gnome-like HELPERS. Are Santa Claus' dwarfish helpers in fact identical with the "hyperspatial elfs" of Terence McKenna's psilocybin reports, and the "little mushroom children" of legendary Mazatec curandero Maria Sabina? Curious indeed. As Mircea Eliade has shown, the animal most frequently revered within Siberian mushroom shamanism is the REINDEER. Reindeers were known to consume fly agarics just like the shaman, and enter similar hallucinatory states. And what animal is it that pulls Santa Claus' sleigh high across the Northern Sky, soaring on a flight unreachable for ordinary men, before returning to ground with great gifts for us all? One such gift may be the new GARAGE RECORDS PRICE & REFERENCE GUIDE put out by well-known garage 45 dealer/collector Barry Wickham. This hasn't been out long and distribution is limited so far, but it should be grippable with some searching. It's a specialist tome and not cheap, so make sure to eat your spinach and do your homework, and a zonked-out Santa may leave one under your Christmas Tree. On a related zitfaced 60s garage note, Mike Markesich unveiled a sample page from his much-awaited TEENBEAT MAYHEM, which won't make it until Yuletide, but maybe to next Mickelmas, the good lord willing. Another book project on the horizon, and one with immediate Lama involvement, is GALACTIC RAMBLE. Edited by Richard Morton Jack of Sunbeam Records, this could be described as a British counterpart to the Acid Archives, featuring capsule reviews and release data for 1000s of little-known 1960s-70s albums. Thanks to the less sprawling nature of the UK rock heritage, the book also finds room for big name artists up to and including the Beatles. I've submitted several dozen reviews, ranging from ultra-obscure folk and Christian rock to my fave Donovan and Hollies discs. Acid Archives associate Aaron Milenski contributes with many more reviews, and fearlessly takes on many of the big 'classic rock' titles that I shied away from. Here is a promo page for Galactic Ramble.
Another talented lady is ALICIA MAY,
who fortunately is alive and well, and recently helped arrange a CD
reissue of her 1976 album Skinnydipping In The Flowers. I wrote a
bit about this excellent and very pro-sounding female
singer-songwriter LP in a Shindig! magazine column last year, and am
happy to report that the Korean Beatball CD reissue sounds extremely
good, bringing Alicia's outstanding voice and sophisticated
arrangements even more to the fore than the original LP. As a
glamorous sidenote, the naked feet seen on the back cover belongs to
noted Hollywood actor Timothy Bottoms, who was Alicia's husband at
the time. Bottoms became a star after The Last Picture Show,
which featured Jeff Bridges, who 25 years later popped up in the
Coens' brilliant The Big Lebowski, which has a memorably
surreal scene with Yma Sumac music! Do you see the connection?
No? Here is
Alicia's website, anyway.
And so
Transylvanian Unification Day draws to its inevitable close, and
I must rush to finalize the latest round of Lysergia.com updates,
which include a brand new & lenghty
essay on TERENCE McKENNA, a transcription of an
interview
with Stacy Sutherland of the 13th FLOOR ELEVATORS, some new
Lama Reviews, and other
assorted brainstorms. |
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Captain's
Log, Star-date: Samhain 2008
|
Thanks to the
steady influx of American pop culture, Halloween has become a
popular festivity up here in Odin's land, and one enjoyed by children
and Lamas alike. While preparing for pumpkin-colored rites of paganism,
you may want to catch up on some web-reading. To that end, we have
prepared a capsule story
of the constantly enigmatic INTERNATIONAL
ARTISTS record label out of Texas, including the most detailed
and accurate discography
yet.
Close to our homebase, the infinitely energetic people at Subliminal Sounds offer new releases from their two flagship acts, the internationally famous psych/progsters of DUNGEN (some of whom recently performed at a prestigious gala with Pink Floyd members and the Swedish king in presence!), and underground legend ST MIKAEL. The latter is done as a limited 500-press edition for Those-In-The-Know, and should be reserved before it sells out. Mikael is a wise man whos says we should eat more psychedelic mushrooms to get civilisation back on track. He's right, of course.
A hepcat over at
the Waxidermy excavated and posted this unbelievably
cool clip of old Eternal Now favorites SNAKEGRINDER
playing back in '76 before a live audience consisting of Terence
McKenna and Jill Clayburgh lookalikes. Damn that guitar-player can
pick! Check out my Acid Archives review for more on this mighty
Delaware jam band. |
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Captain's Log,
Star-date: Autumnal Equinox
2008
| Entering what T S Eliot
called "the dark time of the year" (especially around these
parts), many profound events are in progess, both on the macro and
micro scale. As our world changes, only two things remain certain:
taxes and strange psychedelic records. Prompted somewhat by the
former, I recently went on a crazed spending binge for the latter.
Paris Hilton would have been impressed with my shopping spree! The
fallout is still being sorted out, so more on this later. Regular purchases of late include Euro vinyl repros of things like MODLIN & SCOTT and WILSON McKINLEY's "Spirit Of Elijah". I assumed these to be legit reissues, but here in my hairy hand they have a definite 'boot' feel to them; the latter even has the matrix number manually scratched out, like an old Doors bootleg! Both sound good, in fact the McKinley blows away the two different CD-R transfers I have from originals, which suggests a fair amount of mastering care on this notoriously lo-fi classic. As for their musical contents, you should either know by now, or check out the Acid Archives pronto.
Coming round the bend shortly is one of the better unknown US
psych-era albums I've heard in recent years, being "Of Wondrous Legends" by
O.W.L. An ambitious one-man project from an ex-Mountain Bus member,
O.W.L is a sophisticated, occasionally dazzling early 70s art-rock
trip through Pearls Before Swine, Moody Blues & Freeborne
dimensions. The best tracks will blow your head clean off! Due out
from Locust Records. Remember where you read it first.
I've also been getting into early
ambient & new age albums, and picked up the debut albums from both
EMERALD WEB and MICHAEL STEARNS... any psych fan with a liberated
imagination (i e, any real psych fan) and of a reasonably calm
disposition is likely to enjoy these titles, which are well-known
among genre fans, yet can be found cheap with a little patience. I
predict increased collector interest in this field in the future, yes. |
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Captain's Log,
Star-date: August
2008
I spent a good deal of this Summer holiday sitting on the balcony sipping daiquiris (or reasonable facsimile thereof) while listening to the amazingly drunk senior dance version of "Margaritaville" by lounge maestros the CONTE FOUR. Early retirement with bingo & bowling nights is just around the corner for me... or so it seemed, until the brand new and insanely anticipated reissue of COLD SUN arrived from the good people at World In Sound. I try to keep my finger on the pulse of the deranged psych fans legion, and can assure you that NO OTHER obscure album from the vintage era has been inquired & raved about as much as this ambitious descent into Lemuria via Velvet Underground.
Word on the recent YAHOWA 13 releases is that the old 1973 recordings
were surprisingly weak, while the band's recent live recording from
New York is among the best things they've done. One might expect it to
be the other way around, but when Yod is holding the reins -- and he
still is, you bet -- one can only expect the unexpected. I was
generously helped to a copy of the expensive PAVLO V reissue mentioned
last month and can now report that it's a pretty good album, but
neither downer folk nor new wave -- more like a mature
singer-songwriter sound with shades of "Desire"-era Bob
Dylan and Leonard Cohen. On the subject of overpriced reissues, some
bozos have bootlegged the downer folk cornerstone BOB
DESPER, |
SACRED
MONOLITHS OF 1970s UK FOLK Across the storming sea lies God's green Ireland, where a freshfaced male/female trio by the name of MAC MURROUGH recorded three albums in the 1970s. Their self-titled second LP is universally (well, in a tiny universe) acclaimed as the masterpiece, and it certainly sparkles with youthful enthusiasm and vocal-instrumental skill. This is the most trad:ish folk album in Caliban's Top 10, yet it manages to delight with energy and a somewhat eclectic brew of moody Irish ballads, Breton tunes, and some vaguely Eastern flavor. Straight as an arrow, yet classy and memorable. This LP has been called (cough) "acid folk" by people who either need hearing aids, or have never dropped acid. Neither have MacMurrough, but I wouldn't hold it against them. Still in Ireland, but infinitely more famous in their obscurity, MELLOW CANDLE are frequently cited as a favorite among 70s folkrock druids. It's probably the most commercial-sounding title on this list, with a near-pop sensibility, driving keyboard arrangements, and dazzling female vocal harmonies that may recall Mamas & the Papas or even ABBA at times. Yet, there is plenty of substance and reflection beneath the friendly surface, and the album slowly exfoliates its melancholic magic over time. Reissued a few times, this 1972 Dublin grail should be primed to escape Prospero's island and cross over to the human world. Britain's 1970s folk scene was full of talented, independent-minded ladies, among whom MANDY MORTON cut a particularly illustrious path through the meadow. Her earliest appearances with the Spriguns Of Tolgus presented her as a sweet-voiced village lass, but as the Spriguns metamorphosed over the decade, Mandy emerged as the leader, sending any lazy or ego-tripping males out the door. By 1978 she had formed her own label and recorded what is arguably her masterpiece, the superb Magic Lady. Fairport school folkrock blends with Volunteers-era Jefferson Airplane into a completely finalized album which grabs you from the first track (a tribute to the recently deceased Sandy Denny) and never lets go. The two preceding Spriguns' albums for Decca are also very good. But enough of this commercial
viability. From the murkiest potato cellars of the progressive folk
underground came OBERON, with a sound and
atmosphere like nothing else. Amateur male and female vocals sing
incomprehensible lyrics in a detached liturgical manner, like an
apocalyptic splinter church lamenting man's sin and decrepitude, while
lawlessness and plague rage outside the walls. Caliban appropriately closes his list with an album that could work as a proxy for the entire British 1970s folk underground. STONE ANGEL wasn't discovered until the 1990s, but has since gained much admiration. It's all in there - frail female vocals, gothic moods, electrified versions of trad numbers, odd instrumental flourishes like crumhorn and jew's harp, and a powerful connection to ancient local (Norfolk) folklore. Helped out by a primitive recording, the band instills the atmosphere of a dark, rural past that may still be secretly alive, like seeing candlelight burning in an abandoned cottage at the edge of the forest.
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but you
needn't bother with that since a legit reissue is in progress, with
bonus tracks (his rare non-LP 45) and input from the man himself. I
also spotted a new reissue of MODLIN &
SCOTT, an archetypal piece
of rural rock which needs to be checked out by anyone into 70s
Americana.
Captain's Log,
Star-date: Summer Solstice 2008
And
here we are again, you and I, basking in the glorious brightness of
June & July,
although this year the Summer is shaping up kind of weird for me, and even the notion of that
"me" has been called into question by some recent events.
Back on Planet
Earth, a couple of new reissues have been registered, including a very
high-priced repro of the rare album by PAVLO V,
a pretty good mid-70s singer-songwriter thing with a late-night New York City feel. My
old internet aquintance JOSEPH PUSEY sees
a posthumous reissue of his album, which could be described as a less
free form Incredible String Band. Joseph Pusey was one of the first
interviews I ever did, read it here.
In a somewhat similar style, I spotted a Korean CD reissue of the sole
album from Oregon hippie-folkies TREE PEOPLE,
although it may have been out a while. This album is above average for
the style, and should appeal to fans of things like Modality Stew or
Peter Stark. I actually picked up an orig of Tree People, along with KICKLAND
& JOHNSON, but both had to be returned to the seller due to
over-grading. The latter LP has seen some praise as a CSN type album,
although personally I found it a bit lightweight and generic.
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SACRED
MONOLITHS OF 1970s UK FOLK We were sitting down at the Pig & Whistle, Colin, Nigel & myself, weeping to our ales that we couldn't find any exciting records anymore, when our old friend Caliban walked in the door. "Be not afeard," he said, "for the isle is full of noises, sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices that, if I then had waked after long sleep, will make me sleep again". Fuelled by magic mushrooms, Caliban went on like that for quite some time, with us jotting down frantic notes on our napkins. At closing time, a playlist containing 10 SACRED MONOLITHS OF 70s UK FOLK had been assembled, and is presented here for your edification. After two unexceptional LPs, BREAD LOVE & DREAMS made a quantum jump with their final album, Amaryllis. Decca awarded the band generous studio resources, judging by the strong production and arrangements. The band reciprocated the favor by pouring vast amounts of songwriting talent and energy into the project. Leaning towards the westcoast singer-songwriter sector of 70s folk, we are treated to excellent male/female vocal interplay over rich folkrock instrumentation, augmented by keyboards and effective use of jew's harp (yep). A couple of numbers reflect an Incredible String Band influence, while others bring in a late psychedelic feel, both musically and lyrically. I don't know many albums from the era that play through as beautifully as this, taking the listener on a journey through regular songs, conceptual snips of spoken word, and mysterious sound effects, with a level of realization that never lets you down. Way up yonder in the Scottish Highlands CAEDMON put out one of the most highly rated, and certainly one of the rarest, albums within the progressive folkrock scene. Recorded in an Edinburgh studio as late as 1978, Caedmon's private press LP has at its core an early 1970s sound in the Fairport-Pentangle style. Crystalline femme vocals deliver trad-informed songs, which have been explored and expanded with sharp electric guitar leads, adventurous arrangements, and input from jazz and kraut-rock. Hence, "progressive". The end result may seem too elaborate and cerebral to those groomed on Liege & Lief, but could just as well be taken as a bold, original spin on 1970s Brit folkrock. The album has been reissued a couple of times. At the other end of both the island and the musical spectrum we find the Three Magi of Kent, also known as C.O.B. I have written more about their awesome 1972 Moyshe McStiff LP than pretty much any other album in the world, so I'll keep this short. The vaguely psychedelic and ISB-like elements from C.O.B's debut LP (the excellent Spirit Of Love) are gone; here each song is a finalized, deeply personal statement. There isn't much of trad folk structures, yet the ancient atmosphere seems to preserve a pagan core from old folk music. Arabic and African sounds are integrated into the semi-acoustic English music, like remembrances of travels made long ago. Peaking with the dazzling Renaissance-like beauty of "Martha & Mary", the songwriting is varied and impressive, with outstanding contributions from all three members. Be sure to get the authorized reissue from Sunbeam/Radioactive. Speaking of pagan, I suspect our friend Caliban rates the First Utterance album by COMUS at the top of his desert island list. One of the most legendary LPs of the early 1970s progressive folk scene, Comus is as intense as C.O.B and as eclectic as Caedmon, but it's also a lot scarier than both these. Visions of unholy magick rituals arise as creepy voices invoke ancient spirits, celebrate mental illness and murder, and generally drag you into someone's gothic asylum nightmare. Amidst all the folkrock paganism a soaring hymn called "The Herald" celebrates the coming of day in the most beautiful way. Extraordinary, inspired, challenging and, well, scary. A wild-haired "bad boy" of the UK folk scene, BARRY DRANSFIELD made some wise decisions when putting together his solo debut for Polydor Folk Mill in 1972. Although mainly a selection of cover tunes, the choices seem ideal for him as a performer. Every song fits beautifully into the total puzzle, and several of them sound like they had been written directly for Barry. His vocals are surprisingly good, and in combination with acoustic guitar and his trademark violin, a haunting, almost Nick Drake-like mood is created. Side 1 is near perfect; even the two brief jigs seem appropriate diversions between the powerful, evocative melancholy of the contemporary folk and singer/songwriter tunes. Side 2 is more uneven, but all over a tremendous album with an arresting mood.
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Captain's Log,
Star-date: May 2008
I got a little carried away and took on too many writing assignments at once, so with deadlines looming outside my window like those walking plants in "Day Of The Triffids", this May day column will be less rambling than usual. Some interesting activity has been registered on the reissue front, such as: a CD release of the rare "38:38" album by Michigan 70s duo GEORGE-EDWARDS. This is an unusual, strongly atmospheric album which I haven't fully figured out yet, except that I like it. The band has done two parallel releases, one which combines parts of the original album with later recordings, and one (on CD-R) which is an exact repro of the original album. No vinyl version, alas, unless overseas visionaries step in. See their excellent website for info. Another underground favorite now reissued on CD is "Wizards" by J D EMMANUEL. The concept of minimalist ambience may not blow you away, but you needn't be more advanced in your tastes than me to find this album impressive in its sophistication. Works both as background music in the daytime and more focused listening past midnight. Oh yeah, originals of this album aren't expensive, and it's likely to be an Acid Archives "best buy" in the future.
I was
recently contacted by a relation of the old Baltimore favorites, FORTUNE
TELLER. See earlier rants for some subjective Lama impressions
of their long lost "Inner City Scream" album, which seems to
finally pick up some momentum among collectors. A band
website has been created, including photos of Fortune Teller fans
posing with their trophy and soundclips from the album. |
THE LAMA'S ESOTERIC TRIPS AFRICA: the origin of man, the Dark Continent that sent Joseph Conrad on a bad
mushroom trip and caused Vachel Lindsay to invent rap music! In
postmodern times, contemporary artistes like Toto and Nina
Hagen have brooded over the mystery of Africa. And yet, do not the
most probing views of Africa reside with the African men and women
themselves? |
Captain's Log,
Star-date: April 2008
And so it happened, as we entered the second month of the
Tibetan year 2135, that Easter Rites began on Winter Solstice, which was
followed by a night of Full Moon. The signs are heavy, so much so that the
Lama recently felt compelled to throw an I-Ching hexagram to decide whether to
bid on an eBay auction with a 98% feedback seller (the Oracle's negative
response was duly heeded).
| Summer
is still but a glimmer on the horizon, but if you want to get in the
proper mood, I fully recommend the remarkable book "Children
Of The Sun" by Gordon Kennedy. Self-published out of
California, this traces the westcoast nature boys & alternative
lifestyles back to their origins among German naturists and artists of
the late 19th century. You will see paintings from 1910 that look like
Avalon Ballroom posters. You will see photos of Eden Ahbez in full
spiritual mode. You will learn, and you will marvel. Reading this
book, and then seeing Sean Penn's celebrated "Into The Wild"
tells me that the serious hippie is
coming back, which seems fitting at a time the Tibetans call the Year
Of The Earth Rat. Speaking of "Into The Wild" (which is a must-see); while I think Eddie Vedder's soundtrack songs were appropriate in style and not bad, his vocals seemed to lack the proper sense of yearning and self-reflection. This inspired me to meditate on the concept of 1970s Drifter Rock, which will be dealt with in the near future. Let's say for now that some RELATIVELY CLEAN RIVERS tunes would have worked beautifully with all those desert & canyon panoramas.
|
 |
Some new
records have flown in here, as usual. One odd bird was the previously unknown
"Symphony To Pan" by WILLIAM NOWIK, an
upstate NY trip from 1974. It's instrumental and ostensibly proggy, but the
organic way the music evolves and the non-uptight mood makes it quite
agreeable for psych heads. I had the notion that this is what the THIRD
ESTATE might have done if they'd skipped all the French Revolution
lyrics and expanded their instrumental passages to a whole LP. A copy of
William Nowik was recently ebayed to the tune of $350... more copies may pop
up.
Around the same time, and a little further south, the NEUTRAL
SPIRITS were on the verge of inventing 70s punk-rock, and didn't even
know it. I'll be reviewing this interesting and somewhat underrated album for
Ugly Things shortly, the basic message being that there wasn't just one
Jonathan Richman strumming three chords in the basement in the early 1970s,
but many. The Void reissue looks and sounds good, and is the first vinyl repro
ever of Neutral Spirits. From the reliable people at Guerssen we have a
trinity of related releases concerning the COOLEY-MUNSON
band, who cut a rare and highly rated album of loner folkrock (or whatever) in
early 70s California. Their "In Debt" LP has more weird angles and
sharp corners than the average genre LP, and is worth checking out. Band
member ALAN MUNSON has two more CDs of 1970s
material out with Guerssen, which should appeal to admirers of
"In Debt".
 |
The INTERNATIONAL ARTISTS box-set from Charly
mentioned last month is now here, with above average packaging and some
interesting contents. The Elevators "Scarlet & Gold" pops up in
better sound than I've ever heard it, so maybe some of the recent tape finds
have already been put to use? Similarly, the two Roky Erickson-Clementine Hall
duets from 1967 appear in crystal clear sound. Some of the other stuff is in
mediocre sound, but you get a whole bunch of good garage and psych tracks that
otherwise have only been around on IA 45s. As for the 13th
FLOOR ELEVATORS, there are whispers of a massive box-set that will
utilize all the master tapes recently found, plus previously unknown
recordings, along with live tapes and other pieces of the pyramidal puzzle.
Interest in the band is soaring after Paul Drummond's "Eye Mind"
biography (see below), with newspaper articles and newbie inquiries in
internet chat forums. Later this year... waiting may be filled! <= I.A. garage legends, Thursday's Children |
The release date for the hotly awaited COLD SUN
release from World In Sound has been moved to May. This, I've been told by
mysterious sources, is for exciting reasons, rather than some glitch in the
process. Another group of "Eternal Now" stalwarts, FATHER
YOD & YAHOWA 13 & THE SOURCE FAMILY, have a new release of
previously unknown 1973 recordings coming ut with Drag City in a few months.
Titled "Songs From The Source" and credited to CHILDREN OF THE SIXTH
ROOT RACE (yet another family alias), this seems to move in a song-oriented
direction a la "Savage Sons". Around June we will know. The current
Source Family band recently played in New York City, and reports from veteran
psych heads have been excited. The live music was combined with a "star
pose" audience meditation, as well as a spiritual Q & A. Father's
heritage is alive and well, as the sons & daughters keep extending the
path.
It's not known whether any Yahowans made it to the LAGUNA
BEACH CHRISTMAS HAPPENING in 1970, but there is no doubt that a bunch
of members of the BROTHERHOOD OF ETERNAL LOVE
were there, handing out free LSD inside the massive blockade the Orange County
police had erected around the festival site. Read more about this event and
the related, mysterious "100% UNKNOWN FIBERS"
album in my Shindig magazine article, which has now been uploaded to the Lama
Workshop.
Speaking of uploads, some tasty mushroom magic has been added to Feed
Your Head, as I finally located a copy of the 1957 issue of Life
magazine in which GORDON WASSON introduced
psilocybin shrooms to the world. This is one of the more important events in
psychedelic history, and you can read
it all here, including some beautiful 1950s graphics. I've also added an
interesting academic journal from 1965 with ethnobotanical reports from the
Amazon jungle, namedropping ayahuasca and related substances.
Captain's Log,
Star-date: March 2008
After an
extended midwinter break, prompted by writing assignments and general
laziness, the Eternal Now is once more moving forward through space and time.
It's been kind of slow on the record purchasing front (except for a major
aquisition, to be detailed later), and the resultant energy has been directed
towards books & magazines. Just dig those two crazy Waika indian dudes
above, getting stoned on Epena back in '65 when Syd Barrett was still eating
scones for kicks. A few titles have been added to FEED YOUR
HEAD, including
the very first book on LSD from 1956, an important book by Stanislav Grof from
the mid-70s, and a rare psychedelic magazine from 1966. I've
made some interesting literature scores in recent weeks, watch for much more
later this year.
UGLY
THINGS have come out with a new mammoth issue, this time highlighted by
a long overdue feature on LA:s SONS OF ADAM, UK
rich kid folkrockers TREES, a completely
drug-free account of TIFFANY SHADE, the happening
NAPA VALLEY TEEN SCENE, UK band FIRE
of "Father's Name Is Dad" fame and "Magic Shoemaker"
infamy, and much more. As usual, a few Lama reviews can be found in the back,
including INSTANT ORANGE and the must-have PATRICK
KILROY & NEW AGE. Over in England, the revived SHINDIG!
magazine has managed to crank out yet another issue since the last Eternal Now
report, with color print all through, neat features on the early San Francisco
scene, and an "Esoteric Trips" column by yours truly that looks at
rare 1970s AFRO-ROCK albums.
 |
Some platter chatter: new titles from VOID
Records include an excellent-sounding repro of EARTH
FREE (see Acid Archives for review) and a second, unreleased, pretty
good album from BLISS of Canyon LP obscurity.
Shadoks have put out a bunch of Danish & African stuff of varying quality,
and a French folk album (LES TEMPS HEUREUX) which
is reported to be very good. A release with substantial Lama input is the first-ever reissue of the immortal JADE STONE & LUV, one of the masterpieces of the 70s rhinestone rock scene (my favorite genre of all). After 20 years of searching, Jade Stone suddenly popped up in his hometown Austin, with stories on hard living and broken dreams to share. The reissue has bonus tunes and a detailed account of the great man's career, reaching all the way back to pre-Beatle days. Out now from our friends at Subliminal Sounds. |
Also coming around the bend is an INTERNATIONAL ARTISTS
BOX-SET from Charly/Snapper, including lots of old IA tracks never
before on CD, plus a detailed (accurate) label discography, and a background
story from the Lama. In case anyone missed it, here's the big news once more:
the master tapes for the 13th FLOOR ELEVATORS
albums have been found, and most inexplicably they had been sitting unused in
the Charly Records vaults all this time, while the label licensed
crappy-sounding vinyl-sourced tapes to whoever happened to ask. Watch for the
first 'Vator tape trips in many decades later this year.
EBAY
has been the subject of much on-line venom in recent weeks, due to a misguided
"improvement" of their feedback system and fee structure. A seller
boycott was launched, which may have been heralded by some -- in any event
action has been really slow the last few weeks. Too bad, since the very
favorable dollar exchange rate means that a lot of Europeans are eager to hunt
down old wants at good $$$. One interesting eBay auction item that did fly by
recently was the quite obscure LP by Washington state band STRANGE,
whose 1979 album of agonized private press folkrock must rank as one of the
last great unknown US privates. More on this album in the Acid Archives, as
usual.
Hmm... what else is new? Oh yeah, a couple of neat titles have been added to
our ever-expanding gallery of LSD
Documentary albums. I'm sure I've said this before, but this is the only
field I truly "collect", and if you have an LP lying around that
might fit & you want to get rid of, drop me a line and we'll work
something out.
Below is the promised part 2 of my old UGLY THINGS article on
20 good albums that need to be reissued, updated with current status. Some of
the albums and reissues are also discussed elsewhere in the Eternal Now.
|
11. PEABODY CO (1967) Formally a set of 10" acetates rather than a microgroove LP, the sole legacy of Peabody Co nevertheless plays like an album, and a remarkable album at that. I would call the bulk of it acid-punk, a genre typically preserved only on a handful of exclusive 45s. Others may call it "garage", plain and simple. Beyond semantics, we are treated to 11 songs from a crude but aggressive teenage band who took the Yardbirds "make it new" credo and dragged it mercilessly through the streets of whatever New York suburb they came from. The vocals are delightfully raw and snotty, and on at least one occasion manage to stay off-key for en entire song, while the drummer bangs out his frustration. Excitement mounts as the Peabodies bring in their brand new THEREMIN, and put it to insane use on a couple of songs, including a Magoos-surpassing "Tobacco Road", which actually has been comp'd. The overall sound is not unlike those other famous theremin-punkadelics, the Nite People from Ohio, so you know what to expect. There's only three covers across the 5 acetates, and some of the originals are great garage-psych that combine a Phil May attitude with fuzz raga leads and would fit on any classic 1966-67 comp you can name. A couple of atmospheric downer ballads with more modal chords sound like Rising Storm outtakes. Make no mistake: Peabody Co is miles beyond the usual teen-beat albums of run-of-the-mill cover versions. The band remains unknown, despite lots of tracking attempts, and even the New York area origin is a guesstimate. |
Status: a reissue is in progress |
| 12.
GREER - "Between Two Worlds" (1973) One of the more remarkable music scenes of the early 1970s sprang up around the tobacco fields of Winston-Salem, NC. Evolving out of two ground zero bands, Sacred Irony and Arrogance, a rundown of the names involved is almost like a who's who of future power-pop and indie cult icons: Don Dixon, Chris Stamey, Peter Holsapple, Alex Chilton, Mitch Easter, et al. Oddly, the earliest and perhaps most promising album from this smoking hotbed came from an ex-Arrogance member who would not go on to any kind of fame, one Michael Greer. Partly recorded with Arrogance in 1971 and with session musicians in 1973, "Between Two Worlds" was released locally without much fanfare and remains obscure to this day; certainly more so than the Easter/Holsapple/Stamey "Rittenhouse Square" demo LP from the preceding year. Greer's album is clearly the better, with a fully developed "major" sound, ambitious songwriting, and a wide variety of atmospheres, from dreamy late 60s psychedelia to powerful 70s hardrock. Anyone familiar with the excellent Felt LP on Nasco will find himself on familiar ground. "Between Two Worlds" is one of those LPs where the lack of recognition seems a complete mystery, but success in the music biz is perhaps more about the right time and place than anything else, and it would be several years and a mass exodus to NYC before the sharp Winston-Salem kids caught people's ears, and by then Michael Greer was no longer part of the picture. |
Status: nothing new here, but a reissue of this album seems inevitable |
| 13.
STARLINERS - "Live At Papa Joe's A-Go-Go" (1967) There are many local albums from the garage/teenbeat era, but the truly good ones are few and far between, and the truly good ones not yet reissued can be counted on one hand. While perhaps not a life-altering "Here Are The Sonics" type experience, the obscure album from Minnesota club trio the Starliners has some unusual aspects that makes it stand out among stacks of nervous Young Rascals and Rolling Stones cover LPs. Although a "live" recording only in name, the Starliners were apparently regulars at Papa Joe's, a longstanding club on the Minneapolis north side that often booked blues acts, which may tell you something about the Starliners' pedigree. The majority of the vocals are handled by a white guy with a remarkably powerful Little Richard/Wilson Pickett raspy'n'raw delivery that recalls Gerry Roslie. The band is unusually tight, as demonstrated by a well-oiled "Caravan" with a 1940s Gene Krupa-type drum solo that Iron Butterfly could only dream of. Some of the usual teen club standards appear, including strong takes on "Midnight Hour" and "Satisfaction" (better than the Stones), while a lightning-fast "I'm A Man" offers an interesting counterpoint to hometown rivals the Litter. Best of all is an outstanding, tom tom-happy, reverb-drenched jungle exploration into "Bo Diddley" that is possibly the best version ever. There's also a good band original in a Brit Invasion style, "Broken Engagement". Released on the local LeJac label which had some good garage 45s, supposedly only 275 copies of the Starliners LP survived from the pressing plant. |
Status:
nothing new |
| 14.
DRENDALL, THROWER & FRIENDS - "Papa Never Let Me Sing The
Blues" (1971) This one's what it's all about: a superb, completely pro-sounding LP that just reeks of class and talent, yet came out in a pressing of only 100 copies on a private Michigan label and remains unknown to this day. Much like Hendrickson Road House, the "Papa" album doesn't require more than a pair of ears to be enjoyed by pretty much anyone. The sound is rooted in a loose, rural westcoast style popularized by Neil Young on his classic second solo LP, but Drendall-Thrower make it their own, bringing in dark bluesy and cajun overtones a la Captain Beefheart, adding folk and atmospheric instrumentals and basically stretching the trip into one massive canvas of early 1970s Americana at its best. Apart from Neil, fans of Relatively Clean Rivers and the underrated Whistler Chaucer & co album on UNI will crack a happy smile of recognition, but this is really an album for everyman. Recorded at the notorious Uncle Dirty's studio in Kalamazoo, the people involved went on to release two even more obscure albums which again contain some outstanding tracks but don't quite deliver the feel of coherence that "Papa" does. |
Status: nothing new |
| 15.
CHRISTIAN YOGA CHURCH - "Turn On" (1967) One problem with rating "Incredibly Strange" albums is that the range of listener responses is much wider than with "normal" rock LPs. For this reason our list deliberately omits fringe contenders like Heitkotter, the Kaplan Brothers and Madrigal, but the Christian Yoga Church just had to be in here. With a dubious name and a cheesy cover design that would leave it untouched in almost any bargain bin, the music is an utter surprise - a hypnotic 50 minute trance-fest that leaves pretty much all drone contenders behind. And this in 1967! The Church was a real East/West church but details remain obscure, and the only familiar name on the LP cover is Del-Fi honcho Bob Keene, who must have shook his head in disgust at these freaky Nevada yoga students. A spooky reed organ leads the charge as the music goes through a series of psychedelic chameleon tricks, while different church members tune in to do their bit via percussion, flutes, spinning coins on a table, or mumbling incoherent chants. Sound effects, including what sounds like a real live waterfall, are employed alongside gong chimes. This type of recordings became common in the 1970s, but this both surpasses and predates them all, and is perhaps best approached as an unplugged version of Beat Of The Earth, or a ghostly successor to Alan Watts' legendary 1962 bohemian trip "This Is It". |
Status: nothing new |
| 16.
BOB EDMUND - "I See No Colors" (1970) Bob Edmund's only known release is unique in several ways, not least as one of the few privately pressed LPs with a mid-60s folkrock sound. Coming out of New York City in 1970, "I See No Colors" ignored the prevailing loner folk style to draw on an earlier aesthetic, when tambourine men were all the rage and McGuinn and McGuire pointed the way. Edmund was much too angry to subject his music to any type of LA slickness however, which is why his protest songs come equipped with spikes and rough edges that fit them surprisingly well. Sounding not unlike Barry McGuire on bad speed, Edmund's organ-led combo (called Byrth) can best be described as folk-garage, while his lyrics denounce the war, America, and pretty much everything in sight, and undoubtedly had not been acceptable to a major label. An interesting comparison could be made between the barely contained street-punk rage of this LP, and the happy hippie fairytale moods of Gandalf The Grey, who arose on the same NYC scene around the same time. Edmunds won't reduce himself to a Village soapbox nuisance however, and ends his album with some unexpected hymns to space travel and humanity in general. Released on his own Rabo label, the sleeve was subject to censorship as Edmund's idea of a desecrated Stars 'N Stripes was rejected by the printer. A hurt note on the sleeve explains this background, which in turn explains the album title and the Jasper Johns' style artwork. |
Status: an authorized reissue is in progress, possibly with inclusion of some good bonus material from the late 1970s |
| 17.
BOBB TRIMBLE - "Iron Curtain Innocence" (1980) Contrary to the ignorant "rock critic" view of the world, 60s-style psychedelia didn't curl up and die on December 31, 1969. Outside the big music centers, local acidheads kept sprouting up and making themselves heard throughout the 1970s, and it took the double onslaught of punk rock and disco in 1978 to wipe the stoner slate clean. There are dozens of outstanding psychedelic albums from the 70s, most of which are as good anything made in the 60s. Releasing two self-financed LPs right on the threshold of the first psych revival in the early 1980s, Massachusetts native Bobb Trimble stands as perhaps the last great exponent of original 1960s psychedelia. Neither "Iron Curtain Innocence" nor the subsequent "Harvest Of Dreams" (1982) are retro albums, but works of an artist who somehow managed to keep the original psychedelic era alive inside himself, untouched by all the bad developments of the 1970s. The music is usually described as "Strawberry Fields"-like, and Lennon-on-acid is definitely audible in Trimble's work, as is a whole barrage of classic sounds; Syd's Floyd, the Golden Dawn, Tim Hardin, et al. Apart from the Beatles it's unlikely that Trimble listened to any of these artists, but simply out of his personal aesthetics ended up creating music that is a sheer delight for psych fans. The production is reasonably modern, in a good sense, and there is not a whiff of nostalgia or recycling - Bobb's inner world is much too complex to bother with such nonsense. Side 1 opens with three tracks of devastating studio psychedelia which are almost unparalleled, after which the album moves to a more intimate, folky mood. "Iron Curtain Innocence" is a deeply personal album from an artist who almost accidentally channelled the best aspects of melodic late 1960s psychedelia, and fused the current and the old into an extraordinary whole. "Iron Curtain Innocence" has only been recycled on a 1995 sampler CD, which omitted two excellent tracks. |
 Status: now out on CD and vinyl from Secretly Canadian; for some reason the CD sounds better than the LP version |
| 18.
JADE STONE & LUV - "Mosaics; Pieces of stone" (1977) Not all 70s vanity pressings are idiosynchratic basement projects; some of them are bids for mainstream recognition and success from struggling artists who seemed to have everything it takes to crack the majors, everything except luck. Jade Stone was a talented, ambitious Austin songwriter and vocalist who hoped to make it big in Nashville, and went so far as to put ads in Billboard for this self-financed album. With elements drawn from 70s soul, country-rock and psychedelia, the music is notoriously hard to describe, but its strong cinematic quality has made it a perennial favorite among local/private press collectors. Neon sign singles bars, edge city pool halls and seedy nightclubs flash by while Jade Stone sings like the rock star he hopes to be, supported by short, well-written songs and a glitzy period production. This is a "hip" which is not metropolitan hip, but dreams of fame and glamour from the American underbelly, once memorably summed up as "trailer-park music". The lime-green cover is a supremely tacky 1970s trip showing the couple in vintage regalia, including a handlebar moustache (Jade Stone), hot pants (Luv), and a psychedelic VW bus. Don't let the look scare you off; there's talent galore inside. |
Status: just out on LP & CD from Subliminal Sounds |
| 19.
NOMADDS (1965) Like the Fugitives album above, the Nomadds' selftitled LP derives from a brief, specific moment in time, which is the American teen music landscape after the British Invasion had hit, but before the eruption of crazed garage sounds. Coming out of the Freeport, Illinois club scene, these sharp kids looked to Merseybeat rather than Mick Jagger for inspiration, with excellent Gerry Marsden-influenced lead vocals, plaintive three-part harmonies and stripped down, slightly reverbed instrumentation. That makes it unusual, but what makes it truly rare is the presence of five Nomadd originals, all of which are pretty damn great. There are hooks, there are bridges and obscure chord progressions and difficult tempo shifts going into choruses, and the whole thing is pretty amazing in its Beatle-like classiness and talent. Being a popular club band, the Nomadds still had to fill half the LP with cover versions, which pour some water on the moptop ecstasy, but not more so than to keep the whole thing soaring miles above the usual lukewarm Top 40 outings from local mid-1960s bands. |
Status: a band member has begun work on a reissue, which hopefully will materialize |
| 20.
FORTUNE TELLER - "Inner City Scream" (1978) To close on a somewhat confusing note, here's a Maryland mystery that was long believed to be a 60s garage LP, due to a "1968" copyright year on the cover, and music inside that seemed to confirm this date. The incongruous band photo pointed towards a much later era, and "1978" is usually accepted as the actual release year today. This background indicates the timeless nature of Fortune Teller's music, which is stripped down basement rock, completely devoid of any hippie dreams or rock star postures. Like George Brigman's classic "Jungle rot" album from the same time and place, a sense of urban despair and working class in survival-mode persists, and again like Brigman, "Inner City Scream" could be claimed by both garage, hard-rock and 70s punk fans. There's even a dose of dynamite 60s acid-punk on "Looking glass world". Lost-in-time albums from the mid-1970s are seeing plenty of interest currently, and within that non-genre Fortune Teller offers a unique and stark glimpse of an unglamorous Baltimore reality. In line with its overall nature, the "Inner City Scream" production quality is low-budget to the extreme. |
Status: a reissue has been discussed and may be in progress with a US label |
Captain's Log,
Star-date: January 2008
Two new
books arrived over the holidays, both of them coffee-table tomes that delight
the eye as well as the mind. The ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SWEDISH
PROGRESSIVE MUSIC 1967-1979 may not sound attractive to some of you,
but inside you'll find a lot more than just "progressive" sounds.
Due to the special nature of the time and place, the psychedelic/hippie era
and the stoner/hardrock scene both fall under the prog umbrella, and if you
can accept that taxonomy, and also handle entries about communist troubadors,
you'll find a comprehensive, impressive, and accurate guide to the era. Beyond
vital names like NOVEMBER and TRAD,
GRAS & STENAR the authors have gone the whole hog and managed to
include very obscure titles like BRUSTNA ILLUSIONER
(whose name was actually PREFIX) and PLEBB. 45s
are also featured, including a bunch of 7-inchers I had never heard of before.
Color print throughout with lots of great band photos. A tip of the viking
helmet to authors Ulf Henningsson and Tobias Pettersson. Get it here.
A
very different perspective on the 1970s is offered by the brand new BOMP
BOOK, also known as "Saving
The World One Record At A Time". Partly a tribute to the
profound and influential vision of founder Greg Shaw who unexpectedly
passed away a few years back, this is a huge, beautiful volume which
reprints covers, articles and paraphernalia related to Bomp
magazine.
|
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More reading
matters: issue #2 of the relaunched SHINDIG
magazine just landed here, very snazzy-looking I must say, with coverage of
Gary Walker & The Rain, the Procession, Mitch Mitchell, the Sonics, Moby
Grape & even garage fashion! Maybe I should put up some photos of a
skinny, zit-faced, moptop Lama in plaid pants and black polo shirt circa 1986?
Maybe not. My "Esoteric Trips" column can be found in the back of
the magazine, with special focus on Canadian garage & psych LPs for this
go-round. It is the first and probably last time the LECTRIC
MUSIC REVOLUTION have appeared in full color print. There was also a
section on "Your Favorite XYZ of 2007", and since my rants were too
long-winded for a printed publication, most of it was edited out. So here is
the unabdridged version:
  |
***
FAVORITE REISSUES
OF
2007
***
1. New
Age with Patrick Kilroy "All Around" (RD Records)
|
Lest I
forget, a recent CD compilation you might wanna check out is ALIENS
PSYCHOS & WILD THINGS VOL 4. Although less served by hype and
uncritical praise from "60s fans" than certain other garage/psych
comps, this is one of the few really good series going. This instalment has a
bunch of previously unheard late 60s fuzz-psych gems, including the very rare
Psychotron 45 & more. The injection of DMT the Aliens series mastermind
recently received apparently paid off. For those who missed earlier volumes in
the series, Norton Records have done a selective recycling of their contents
(Norton #289), though some of the more long-haired material is missing.
Speaking of Norton, they've fearlessly assembled a sampler of the best tracks
from the 20+ albums originally released in 1966-67 on the notorious Justice
label, along with straight repros of the TEMPOS
and PHANTOM RAIDERS albums. It's
all here.
Other reissues of interest of late include the HUMAN
BEAST, legit from tapes from the reliable Sunbeam label. This is one of
my favorite albums from the late 60s UK underground, as it avoids the usual
traps (operatic vocals, bombastic moods, etc) of the era. I ought to write a
longer review of this, so for now I'll just say that it's great, and that the
liner notes detail a recording session that was a lot less stringent than the
end result suggests. Also from Sunbeam there's BLOSSOM
TOES (both LPs) and the post-Mighty Baby HABIBIYYA,
which needs to be heard by anyone looking for an whole album like KALEIDOSCOPE'S
"Taxim"... very tasty, and with Susan Graubard/Archuletta of PAT
KILROY & NEW AGE in there jamming!
Small world. Strange, and small.
Here's some recent purchases of
glorious old vinyl... mostly Weird Stuff this round, for some reason.
Top centre is John Rydgren's "Cantata", a long time want I
finally secured. See y'all in February. Don't eat the purple snow! |
|
Captain's Log,
Star-date: December 2007
It is the time to be merry as only a few days remain before the
dim-witted earth globe starts
tipping over in a new direction that allows us Nordic folks to slowly but
surely pull out of our long twilight towards a brighter future on the
other side of Winter Solstice. Edgar Allen Poe whined about "the dark
time of the year" yet was never exposed to 18 hours of black night followed by 6 hours of dusk, after which night falls again.
You know that recent sci-fi movie "Sunshine", about how the sun is
dying? The final scene was shot just a couple of miles from where I live, then
they added the Sydney opera house digitally to hammer their point home. No
joke.
And so there's been plenty of time for psychedelic work lately. I've added a
bunch of scans from the old British 1970s music zine DARK
STAR, some of which should be of interest for anyone into westcoast
psych and acid rock. See it all here. Our
"Feed Your Head" website is being continuously updated with new book
and magazine presentations. We're slowly moving towards contemporary matters,
since the archaic revival continues to expand & shamanistic entheogen
usage is spreading. Be sure to check in there regularly.
| Music-wise the PETER
GRUDZIEN 2-LP reissue just arrived, the first vinyl repro ever
of this classic 1970s underground folk album. Unlike the Parallel
World CD from the 1990s this recreates the exact contents of the 1974
"Unicorn" LP, and adds 1 whole disc's worth of previously
unreleased material. A neat & important release from our friends
at Subliminal Sounds... get the 500 ltd ed vinyl version before it
disappears. As exciting as the Grudz is the long-awaited return of 1990s psych wizard S T MIKAEL, who delights us with a double LP of new recordings that are as good as anything he's ever done. Any fan of Mikael will instantly recognize the soaring voice, the quality songwriting, and the LSD-flavored lyrics. Recorded with members of DUNGEN, this has a full-blown psych-rock sound, much like his 4th LP "Psychocosmic Songs" (my personal STM fave). Mikael is not a record collector... he is D R HOOKER's lost son! "Mind Of Fire" is the album title. Get it.
|
 |
Few heads are likely to have missed the Summer Of Love 40th anniversary the past Summer, but another and even more significant jubilee went largely unnoticed back in 2006. I'm talking about the TRIPS FESTIVAL, which kicked off the true Summer Of Love (1966) by bringing together the colorful freak multitudes prowling around SF for the first time, making everyone realize they were not alone, but in fact numbered 1000s. The Trips Festival also marked the apex of the MERRY PRANKSTERS' series of Acid Tests, whose momentum had been building through late '65. Why am I telling you these things, which you already know? Well, for all its underground legend, the Trips Festival has been somewhat poorly documented... until now. A brand new DVD release should add needed fuel to the saga about an event from which a lot of important stuff sprang.
 |
Another hippie era
legend with a westcoast mindset is Canada's BOB
BRYDEN. His early work with REIGN GHOST
and CHRISTMAS produced some of the best
albums from the time and place, and Bryden has kept the cauldron
boiling over the years. Check out this very classy and informative website,
which also presents Bryden's new album, "Polaroid Verite". One interesting bit of info is that the first, super-rare & expensive 1969 Christmas album was never intended for release, it was just some throwaway jams recorded while Bryden & co were working on one of those exploitation LPs the Canadians excelled at. And for this people pay $1500 (ho-ho)? I've also been told the Christmas "Live" LP is a good one, but still haven't heard it. Anyone able to help out here, drop me a line. Speaking of Canada, I just finished a column on good and unknown Maple Leaf albums for the next issue of SHINDIG, which should be out early 2008. Feature articles include Gary Walker of "Francis" fame, garage fashion (should be a gas), the Sonics revived, early San Francisco scene, continued Moby Grape coverage, and more. |
Before looking ahead, I'd like to look back on a piece I wrote for UGLY THINGS magazine some years back. Titled "There's Still Gold In Them Hills", the article presented 20 obscure albums that I felt were long overdue for reissue, on the slim hope that some reissue label executives may read the rant and have a 100 watt ligh-bulb epiphany on what to do next. Since this piece doesn't really fit anywhere else at Lysergia.com, I'm printing the whole thing (minus an intro) here, including a current status update. This is part 1, to be followed by part 2 (#11-20) in a future blog entry.
| 1.
RATIONALS - "Fan Club LP" (1966) At the end of a great year which had seen the "Rats" break out of their Ann Arbor/Detroit homebase via a major label semi-hit 45, as well as being voted the most popular band in Motor City by WKNR, manager Jeep Holland got the idea to put something tangible together as a sign of gratitude to the band's sizable following. This fan club album never went beyond a few test pressings, but captures a very different sound than the soul-rock they would deliver on their only official (1970) LP. If the "Fan Club LP" had been released properly as their debut 12-incher in late 1966, the Rationals' posthumous standing would have been like that of the Remains or the Blue Things, and we wouldn't have to hunt down rare A-Square 45s and fanzine articles to understand their importance as avatars of classic American r'n'r & garage. The "Fan-Club LP" contains a couple of pre-Beatle instros from the band's earliest days, alternate takes of the band's great first two 45s, a number of good, unreleased originals in a British Invasion style and, best of all, a 6-minute feedback rave-up medley on "Smokestack Lightning"/"Inside Looking Out" which points towards the band's devastating guitar-psych 45 on Genesis, as well as giving the Litter a run for the money. Only two copies have been found of the LP, which never had a cover made and came with blank labels and "Rationals" scratched into the dead wax. Scott Morgan recently stated that he was trying to track the masters down, which hopefully will lead to a release of this significant piece of 1960s music history. |
Status: an exhaustive Rationals retrospective, including all the "Fan Club LP" material, is being planned by Ace/Big Beat. |
| 2.
EASY CHAIR (1968) Consisting of just three tracks and less than 20 minutes of music, the Easy Chair's one-sided demo LP has been a legendary westcoast artefact for as long as I can remember. Few people have actually heard it, but among those some have expressed surprise at how good it is, apart from the collector wet-dream perspective. Recorded as early as April 1968, the sound is surprisingly mature and selfconfident, pointing towards the epic-psychedelic style found on 1970s classics such as Bob Smith, D R Hooker and Garrett Lund. The short fuzzrocker "My Own Life" has gone around on a CD-R compilation, but it's the extended "Slender Woman" and "Easy Chair" (which named the band) that give the demo its moody ahead-of-time character, reminiscent of the "Sardonicus" Spirit at times. Easy Chair are often mistakenly referred to as a Bay Area outfit, but the band was from Seattle and recorded the demo with the local Vanco label, whose LP catalog seems to have been a custom/vanity operation. Each of the few hundred copies pressed came with one of four different promo photos. None of this did much to break the Easy Chair, but after opening for the Mothers Of Invention, Frank Zappa liked the band enough that he invited them down to LA for his Straight label. However, the band fell apart in the interim, leaving band leader Jeff Simmons to cut a solo LP for Straight and later join Zappa's band. Now that its' hallowed 1-sided demo cousin Country Weather has been reissued (see UT #23), the time is certainly ripe for this westcoast milestone to become available. |
Status: the World In Sound label is cooperating with Jeff Simmons on a number of releases, which should include Easy Chair. Simmons' solo LP has recently been reissued by W.I.S.  |
| 3.
WILSON McKINLEY - "Spirit Of Elijah" (1971) The gradual discovery of great Christian rock albums from the 1970s is one of the more remarkable exploits within local music archeology. Ranging from the powerful Old Testament guitar-psychedelia of Fraction to the wide-open marijuana jams of Kristyl, a whole field of outstanding rock music was rescued from a quiet death in "religious/new age" bins by curious collectors during the 1980s-90s. These obscure LPs spring mainly from the "Jesus Movement", a reflection of renewed interest in Christ among young Americans in the fallout from the psychedelic era. The born-again kids, often ex-hippies and ex-dopers, didn't see the point of squeaky clean gospel and Sunday School folk-pop to celebrate their faith, as secular rock music had progressed far beyond such lameness. One of the first and most important bands in the Jesus Rock scene was Wilson McKinley. Originally a band of non-religious musicians from Spokane WA, they experienced a joint conversion to Christianity in 1970. As other fine "X-ian" bands like Last Call Of Shiloh and Rainbow Promise, they looked to the West - meaning the San Francisco ballrooms - for a new sound to match their new faith. McKinley's second album and acclaimed masterpiece "Spirit Of Elijah" shows a strong Moby Grape influence, including a cover of "He". The open, flowing nature of the SF acidrock makes for a perfect marriage with the peaceful, non-sermonizing message of the words. The album is strong all through with a peak in the epic title track, a spine-chilling apocalyptic vision made even more powerful by its low-key, introvert folkrock presentation. "Elijah" has never been reissued, although about half of it can be found on a retrospective CD put together by the band. |
Status: nothing new here, but the inferior CD samplers are still floating around. |
| 4.
THE CONTENTS ARE - "Through You" (1967) One of the best things about diving into the local/private press album scene is that it seems to have no bottom. Even after 25 years of bargain bin and warehouse scrutiny, previously unknown, vintage titles rise to the surface. Rumors of a limited demo LP pressing from this renowned Iowa garage/folkrock band had circulated but remained unconfirmed until an actual copy popped up at a recent Austin Record Show. Curiosity grew into excitement as the album turned out to feature 13 band originals in a terrific melodic Beatles '65-66 style with a sprinkling of Byrds on top. In other words, an ideal sound for a "lost" 60s album, reminiscent of the Beauregard Ajax recordings from LA (reviewed in this issue). Drawing inspiration from the Beatles is usually an indication of both taste and cojones, and the Contents Are deliver a string of well-crafted and skillfully arranged 3-minute gems from the point where beat and folkrock turn into melodic psychedelia. There's also hints of an early rural sound a la Buffalo Springfield. Coming out of the Midwest in '67, this is as advanced as H P Lovecraft, and thus of substantial historical value, in addition to the sheer listening pleasure. The gentleman in possession of the album has made contact with band members and a reissue will hopefully come down the line. Prepare yourself for a treat. |
Status: now out as a deluxe vinyl reissue from Shadoks.  |
| 5.
THE FUGITIVES - "At Dave's Hideout" (1965) The Fugitives "live" LP is significant not only as a pre-SRC item, but also as the very first local Detroit album from a honkie r'n'r act. Several intriguing releases would follow in '66-67, usually related to Hideout, the Cage-A-Go-Go, A-Square or other legendary teen nexi of mid-60s motor city, before hard drugs and kitchen sink revolutions killed the fun. And good clean teenage fun can be found all across this irresistible LP, which captures perfectly the exciting but brief post-Invasion, pre-garage era, when bands would freely mix frat, instros, soul and "the new sound from England", and getting kudos for it. Recorded in the Quackenbush parents' basement in 1965, the tapes were played back at Dave Leone's Hideout club, where applause and teenage ambience were ingeniously recorded on the second track. Leone says only 300 copies were pressed, which were immediately sold out at the club. Obviously patterned on the Kingsmen's first LP, from which not less than four tracks were covered to great effect, it's interesting to note that "Louie Louie" is met with greater crowd enthusiasm than "A Hard Days Night". There's also a couple of originals, including alternate versions of scene staples like "Friday at the Hideout" and "You're Gonna Be Mine". Who cares if a "live" album is fake, as long as it's great? The early Detroit scene has met with substantial interest from compilers and writers in recent years, but this granddaddy of the whole party remains unreissued. |
Status: nothing new here, but this one is likely to be reissued in some way or other. Norton should go for it! |
| 6.
HENDRICKSON ROAD HOUSE (1970) I'm the first to admit that a lot of obscure album finds these days belong to musical styles that are so off-the-wall that the average 60s fan is likely to pull a big "?" if confronted with them. Which is why it's so surprising to discover a previously unknown LP with a sound that pretty much anyone with ears would fall for; a completely professional, obviously talented melodic folkpsych LP with superb female vocals, sophisticated playing and an overall major league feel. Hendrickson Road House were pretty far from major league however, appearing as they did on the tiny Two:Dot label from rural CA, a custom plant whose only other claim to fame is the release of two supremely rare LPs by Arthur (recently reissued by RD Records) and the Mystic Zephyr 4, a bizarre "outsider" cross between the Brady Bunch and those infamous big gurls, the Shaggs. At the opposite end of the musical spectrum we find Hendrickson Road House, which despite the bar-band sounding name is the work of one Sue Akins, who wrote the songs, sings and plays most instruments. The music has been compared to side 1 of Serpent Power, but is clearly better and more sophisticated; fans of These Trails and Linda Perhacs are also likely to find much to enjoy in this exquisite album, with a melancholic late-night mood that remains enchanting and never becomes depressive. The second to last track is a non-descript jazz instrumental, probably at the session musicians' demand, which could simply be removed when this gets reissued. The rest ranges from good to brilliant. |
Status: interest in reissuing this has been expressed, and a possible contact has been made with a band member. |
| 7.
YAYS & NAYS (1968) I don't know any LP even remotely like the Yays & Nays, yet it's highly listenable, even commercial in parts, rooted in a lively Grassroots folkrock sound and branching off into tough garage and soft femme-vox pop. The member line-up of three guys and three girls is unusual, but a logical cause and effect of its theme. You see, this is a concept LP dealing with gender oppositions, a "war between the sexes". Some of the tunes are sung by the guys, from a guy perspective, others are sung by the gals from a gal perspective, and on the incredible "If" we are treated to an Aristophanic dialogue between the two camps. The male members typically sing solo in a mock-manly Johnny Cash/Lee Hazlewood style that works as an ironic deflation of the macho content of their lyrics. The women in turn sing ensemble, like the chorus of a Greek play, their high-pitched feminine voices aggregating power when heard together .The lyrics follow a similar pattern, the guys delivering sentiments and desires from a by-gone 1950s world, while the ladies usually express a 1960s sense of freedom and independence. The whole thing plays like an inspired fratty college musical sendup of the Lee & Nancy and Sonny & Cher duets. Us retro music lovers often lament the lack of success for artists that were in the wrong place or on the wrong label, but that line doesn't really work for the Yays & Nays, because even on Vanguard or Elektra I think this would have flopped at the time -- it's such a multilayered, double-edged trip that requires many plays to grasp, and thus probably better fit for 2006 than the fast and flashy 1960s. Not much is known about the band, except that they came from the Southeast somewhere and were shown posing in a swamp dressed in hip mod gear on the cover. |
Status: nothing new, except that a lot of people like this album.
|
| 8.
CONSTANT SOUND (1967) I drew an almost complete blank when trying to dredge up info on this album. Released as a sleeveless demo pressing c1967, the band was most likely from the westcoast, and there is a certain probability that it was a studio-only project. Constant Sound is a rare bird among no-label artefacts, a fullgrown specimen of what is referred to as California Sunshine Harmony Pop. All 12 songs fall smoothly into this bag, and there are no ambitions pointing elsewhere. As such, it's also very good, with rich male/female vocal harmonies, upbeat major key songs with a reasonable number of hooks, and the rich panoramic production style that fans of the genre request. The lyrics show obvious psychedelic aspirations, and the vibe is "aware" despite the light fare packaging and occasional orchestrations. Perhaps the most interesting track is "The Avalon", which upon close scrutiny is a tribute to the famous San Francisco ballroom, with concrete details from inside Chet Helms' old acidrock palace. The sunny LA studio vibe of Constant Sound is hardly the type of music Helms enjoyed, and the background for this tune is a substantial mystery. Other tracks embellish the Love Exchange/Birmingham Sunday vocal pop with a Curt Boettcher sophistication, and there are also appealing moves into the cocktail lounge sounds of the third Strawberry Alarmclock LP. In light of the huge interest in this genre in recent years, Constant Sound is definitely ripe for discovery. |
Status: although there is definite commercial potential here, the lack of background info and utter rarity of the disc means this one may remain unreissued. |
| 9.
CAMBRIDGE - "Share A Song" (1977) The little-known Cambridge band from rural Pennsylvania recorded what is simply the best local country-rock album from anywhere. Rooted in an upbeat Marin County style popularized by New Riders Of The Purple Sage, the band sounds like the genre was invited for them and them alone, combining snappy songs with a relaxed mood, like a sparkling day in June. For Nashville tearjerkers or slick urban LA cowboyisms you have to look elsewhere. The Cambridge sound is equal doses modern country and westcoast rock, seamlessly merging honky-tonk piano with Buffalo Springfield-like tunes and psychedelic guitar solos, or conversely, mixing steel guitar with atmospheric mellotron backdrops. The field of "rural rock" produced a number of fine local albums such as Afton, Modlin & Scott, the Dallas County Green et al, but ultimately Cambridge's superb grip on who they were and what they wanted takes home first prize honors, and had "Share A Song" been released on a major label it would have made the band famous. Ex-member Dan Vogan is currently active in Vogan & Deuble, who are still working with the Green Dolphin label that saw this LP released several decades ago. |
Status: nothing to report; the genre isn't among the hotter styles for recycling, although the album is better than almost all the mediocre lyte-psych and whatever that does get reissued. |
| 10.
BOB DESPER - "New Sounds" (1974) Perhaps no other genre has been so misrepresented by hype as that of acoustic 1970s solo LPs, a k a "loner" or "downer" folk. There were literally thousands of such local albums released in the wake of Tim Hardin, Tim Buckley, CSN and John Lennon's post-Beatle work. With no arrangements or production tricks to hide behind, the genre allows us a naked, warts-and-all glimpse of the artist in question, which is undoubtedly its greatest appeal. Often, however, closeness is about the best thing these albums can offer, while the lack of useful songwriting or even a working voice indicates precisely why they had to be released as vanity jobs. You need to go through many stacks of bad 1970s folk and singer/songwriter albums to find a few excellent LPs like Perry Leopold, William Beeley or Dave Bixby. So, unless you're a Japanese completist collector of "loner privates", particular caution must be applied when walking among these sorry-ass troubadors. With his darkly lyrical voice, swift steelstring picking and a pro-sounding recording, Oregon's Bob Desper is one of the definite needles in the haystack. Blind since his birth, the darkness and loneliness Desper sings of becomes overwhelmingly real, yet his artistic abilities creates respect rather than pity. The lyrics refer to eyes, blindness, lights and glows, sounds and smells, drawing you into a non-seeing man's world in a way only music can. If released on a national label, Desper would have been a legend today, and maybe it's not too late. |
Status: a bootleg CD from Korea or Japan has been advertised, not sure if it's actually out. A legit deluxe vinyl repro would be most welcome. |
And finally, some excellent news to round off the
year: Ron Matelic's studio
recordings from the 1990s have now been commercially released by the
pay-to-download website Anthology Recordings. I highlighted these back in my
ANONYMOUS / J RIDER interview with Ron, suggesting that some of the tracks are
as great as his awe-inspiring 1970s work. Any fans of the
aforementioned bands must check these out, and while you're at it, read my
recent appreciation
of Ron's career at the same website.
So, 2007 is
about to slide into the past, especially for us who live in the Eternal Now.
Workwise for me it's been mostly about the ACID ARCHIVES
book, which has been a steady seller throughout the year. The fourth printing
is currently in circulation, and there may be another run in 2008. The
response to our work has been terrific, with very few of the expected nay-sayers
and sceptics rearing their heads. Some constructive criticism has been logged
for future brooding, but all over I must say it's been smooth sailing
through friendly waters. Music-wise I've been getting -- in case anyone missed
it -- into contemporary psychedelia of the electronic kind, a rather exciting
discovery process which is still happening right now. The quality of
contemporary psy-chill music is remarkable, and I'm rounding up as much
as I can before these limited underground CD releases sink into
never-never oblivion. I have a third and final instalment in my psybient review series
coming up next month, as I needed time to digest a stack of recent purchases.
Related to this quest I've been pleasantly surprised to see how very much
alive the modern psychotropic scene is, with Terence McKenna acolytes in every
chillout room on the western hemisphere. Ayahuasca, DMT and psilocybin... it
all keeps happening.
Beyond current affairs, a bunch of interesting reissues from various Euro
vinyl purveyors have graced our home during 2007, of which special mention must me made of
the PAT KILROY & NEW AGE album from RD
Records. We've also seen two remarkable books come out, both of them closing
arcs that (for me) began way back in the 1980s, finally unravelling the
seemingly infinite mysteries of the 13th FLOOR ELEVATORS
and FATHER YOD & YAHOWHA 13, respectively. With glossy bios
on these ancient weird longhair drug troops available over the counter from
a big publisher & even reviewed in the New York Times, our current astral plane known
as baseline reality must be a pretty good place. Let's hope so. 2008 should
prove it.
Captain's Log,
Star-date: November 2007
Unless you too live within shouting distance from the Arctic
Circle, you have no idea exactly how dark, cold and grim the late Fall can be
up here. There's still 6 weeks left to Winter Solstice and I'm seeing frost on
the grass outside my window! So, what to do except pour a stiff Bowmore
Mariner, lay back in the recliner, and spin some deranged drug music? Ah yes.
Here's some recent additions to the Lama library, all originals needless to
say (and yet I had to say it):
Another timekill during the dark season is checking out funny-looking 60s bands on
YouTube. Seeing all this great stuff available for free makes the care I took
over the years to preserve a small stack of VHS tapes with supposedly
"ultra-rare" clips of the Seeds and Blues Magoos now seem a bit
goofy, but on the other hand I can toss out those clunky old cassettes without
having to bother with digitizing them... since it's all up for free on the
internet! Some seriously cool stuff is out there man, things that never even
circulated on those cherished video tapes back in the 1980s, like New Colony Six "I
Lie Awake", Strawberry Alarmclock "Tomorrow",
Music Machine "The
Eagle Never Hunts The Fly", Sons
Of Adam, Electric Prunes "You
Never Had It Better" live, the Sorrows 4
tracks live, and much more.
Elsewhere, the fine folks at SHINDIG!
are keeping us busy with their revamped magazine and tight (bi-monthly)
publishing schedule. The first issue of the re-launch just landed here,
looking extremely nice (a bit like the old Strange Things zine) with color
print throughout and juicy pieces on various hip subjects like the 14
Hour Technicolor Dream (the event, not the tune), the full band story
and photos of FOREVER AMBER, and even a couple of
Lama contributions on the Laguna Beach Christmas Happening and related 100%
UNKNOWN FIBRES album, as well as a recurring column called
"Esoteric Trips". The current issue is barely out and the next one
is already announced, making me having to put in actual work to meet the
deadline. Speaking of, I've now added my lengthy interview & article on DENISE
KAUFMAN & THE ACE OF CUPS to the Lama Workshop, check it out... one
of my more ambitious undertakings, and well worth doing too. And related to
all this, I should mention (in case anyone missed it) that the recent reissues of MOBY GRAPE from Sundazed
have now been withdrawn, after the Evil Guy who holds the band's souls locked
up once again found a way to make everyone unhappy.
| More reading material -- after last month's major tome on the
13th Floor Elevators, the folks at Process publishing strike again with a
big, juicy and very nicely designed book on FATHER YOD
& YAHOWA 13 & THE SOURCE FAMILY. Authored by the Family's
record-keeper Isis, it seems very promising so far, even better than I had
hoped for, with a surprisingly straight-forward and open-hearted coverage of
the old man's great and occasionally dubious deeds. As the Source documentary DVD from 2005 also demonstrated, these people are neither fools nor brainwashed, but regular folks from all walks of life who just happened upon a different trip, and one that for once didn't rip them off or lead them over a cliff -- except for Yod himself, of course. It was cool to see some of the wild stories Michael Bowen told me about the early days of Jim Baker/Father Yod appear in this book, like the time when the big guy became notorious as the Judo Killer in the LA tabloids. Oh yeah, there's lots of previously unseen photos and documentation of the family's acid rock music activities, for those who care only about that bit. Father Yod seals a Source Family marriage with his cosmic bear hug => |
 |
Looking over the rants below, I
discovered that I've forgotten to mention two cool CD reissues that have been
on rotation here in recent months -- the quite attractive and surprisingly
good sampler of THE LIGHT, a San Berdoo band
covered in detail in Ugly Things that mustered only one official 45 release,
but left behind a bunch of cool stuff, ranging from typical SoCal Yardbird
teen garage, to creative and cutting edge westcoast rock with a NEW
TWEEDY BROTHERS feel. The preceding CD with The Bush was real good, but
this Light thing may be even better. You keep 'em coming Mr Stax! While in the
LA area and watching teenagers' hair grow, there are worse soundtracks to
blast than the recent double CD from World In Sound featuring JEFF
SIMMONS, ex-Easy Chair and pre-Mothers. Simmons solo LP on Straight was
better than I expected, with some really cutting guitar-work and nice Sunset
Strip '69 sleaze & dope vibe. The "Naked Angels" biker flick
soundtrack Simmons most appropriately recorded is featured on the second CD.
On an
unrelated and less exhilarating note, the notoriously liberal
Netherlands have decided to make PSILOCYBIN
MUSHROOMS illegal. Over the recent years, shamanic-tribal usage
of stropharia cubensis & its cousins has mushroomed around Europe,
thanks in no small part to the easy and legit availability of high
quality products from various Dutch head shops. Unfortunately, some
dumbass tourists who hadn't done their homework decided to trip out in
a bad set & setting, with the usual pathetic consequences, and
since this made for bad tabloid press, the government powers decided
to put their foot down into the fertile cow-pie where mushroom culture
has been revived. As of this writing, the law has not yet gone into
effect, and there's still time to place an order for a bag of
psychedelic mushrooms -- 10 hours of organic insight is just some
Googling and a few mouse-clicks away. We have nothing to fear but fear itself What happens next? Well, in recent years 1000s upon 1000s of hip young men and women have been allowed a peek inside the ancient mystery, and I very much doubt that they're going to change their ways just because some politicians chickened out to avoid bullshit newspaper headlines. In other words, there is no -- in fact has never been any -- cause for alarm: psychedelia continues to grow among friends behind closed doors, which has always been the best way to do it anyway. Here's what I want for Winter Solstice:  Until then it's not fare well, but fare forward, voyagers! |
|
Captain's Log,
Star-date: October 2007
Here we are
again, after a hiatus caused by influenza, autumnal spleen, extracurricular
obligations, and general mayhem. Some catching up is definitely in order, and
let's begin with one of the most buzzingest trips around -- the new 13th
FLOOR ELEVATORS biography, "Eye Mind" by Paul Drummond.
Originally scheduled for November it is in fact out already, and a lot of
people are eager to pick it up. Formal reviews and discussions will come down
the line, but the graphic material alone makes this a must for anyone even
moderately interested in the Elevators, with a lot of photos and posters in
much better print quality than seen before. The best parts to me were the
opening chapters in Kerrville, and also the period in 1967 after the two
Dannys (Galindo & Thomas) joined, including the "Easter
Everywhere" sessions. I got really involved with the reading here,
forgetting my geek/collector approach and simply enjoying it as a reader. A
less hardcore fan will probably get even more milage from the sheer
bizarreness, drama, and tragedy of the storyline, since a lot of it hasn't
been formally documented before. Along with the Misunderstood and the West
Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, I think the Elevators are the great
band story of the 60s. Anyone trying to write something about the band in the
future will have to read this book, and since the level of research and
general accuracy of "Eye Mind" is way beyond anything done before,
this book will up-level the public knowledge of the Elevators. Maybe not up to
the 13th floor, but certainly up from where it is today.
The master tapes for all three studio albums by the 13th
Floor Elevators have been located, along with a bunch of other I A reels. The
Elevators material is either in the form of mixdown master reels, or safety
dubs from mixdowns. Reportedly this was all sitting in Charly's vault while
they were churning out vinyl-sourced, crap-sounding reissues. Weird, huh? In
any event, the 30-year Quest is over. Not to say that this means they will be
released next month, or even next year... but the master recordings are in
existence, and people can stop asking.
Seems the FATHER YOD & SOURCE FAMILY book is
also out, more on that once I've picked up a copy. Isis & the Yahowha gang
have seen the interest around the world, interpreted the signs, and once more
opened the door to Father's teachings. That's right -- the Family is active
again, spreading the gospel! Sign up to learn more about cosmic energy and
beards on the revamped website here.
| As you know, I've
been getting into TERENCE McKENNA of
late, and I've also been getting into contemporary Psybient music (see
side-bar). I was surprised to find that the voice most frequently
sampled on Psybient recordings is Terence McKenna; he's like their
Moses. It all connects, man. I figured I had to
get real with my McKenna collection, beyond the few books and the
lo-fi MP3 samples floating around. So I went out hunting for his "TRUE
HALLUCINATIONS" work, a quite ambitious 1984 "talking
book" of 8 cassettes with spoken raps & some music that sold for $80 then (a lot of money at the time), and is somewhat
hard to find nowadays, especially as an original. I had a line on an
expensive copy with a cool provenance, but decided to wait.
Just a few days later I found another copy on eBay, won it fairly
cheap, and after some twists & turns had it delivered here. It's an outstanding work, reflecting McKenna's writer-poet ambitions in a way unlike his other works, as it spins a 9-hour tale of explorations into Amazonian shroom revelations, ayahuasca tribes, UFO:s, and esoteric science. Terence's brother Dennis is given plenty of space in the story, being described as a "genius" and the actual source of many of St Terence's controversial theories, all culminating in that extraordinary field trip to the Amazon 1971. So you can imagine my surprise, when I opened my "True Hallucinations" box set and spotted this ==> |
 |
That's provenance, and synchronicity too. What does it signify? Beats me, but nowadays I choose to believe.
|
Um, let's get back to Planet Earth, shall we? Not that the unreleased album
from PAT KILROY & NEW AGE is likely to keep
you grounded for long, seeing how it soars off into nocturnal spiritual
excursions like a disembodied spirit roaming the Indus valley looking for
peace of mind. My upcoming Ugly Things review calls it "the Rolls Royce
of early acoustic Eastern trance recordings" or something like that, and
it's an essential, groundbreaking release from RD Records. Perhaps not
groundbreaking but certainly groundshaking sounds come from GROUNDSHAKER,
a "lost" Los Angeles hardrock band from the early 1970s, who spice
up their Rockadelic style teenage hardrock with credible moves into
Stones/Faces/Free style bourbon rock, and should gain plenty of fans. From the
same label (Red Lounge) we also have a retrospective vinyl collection of the DUKES,
a German 60s band who cut an all-time Lama fave with the cool "Unskilled
Worker". Although they were really from the late 60s, the attitude and
sound is pre-hippie, tough & talented. Other enjoyable reissues that have
flown in here include JEFF SIMMONS from World In
Sound (2-CD set with his solo LP + the biker movie soundtrack), the weird but
fun JEM TARGAL (CD with nice custom packaging)
and, back with RD Records again, PRUFROCK, which
is an acetate-only 1967 album from a California garage/psych band with lots of
personality and some great tracks... kind of like how the Tormentors might
have sounded if they had been any good. Although prices on eBay have taken a jump into the stratosphere recently -- Lord knows why -- interesting obscurities and actual bargains can still be found, if you have the time and energy. Some purchases of mine from the last few months seemed interesting enough to present at the esteemed Waxidermy website, such as an early, almost unknown spoken word comedy album from Hugh Romney aka WAVY GRAVY. Even more odd was "ART OF THE GIFTED", a mid-1980s music therapy project featuring mental patients doing weird music under the tutelage of a shrink who, like everything else in the world, turned out to have a connection to the 13th Floor Elevators. Staying on the fringe of things, I picked up RICHARD VALE & THE GEMS, a fine incarnation of local 60s lounge band atmosphere, crooner tunes, and even a cover of "Acapulco Gold". I'll be looking to explore this style more, unless it gets too trendy, at which I will bow out. Some more regular psych & folk records have flown in here too, including a couple of heavies I managed to snatch, but I'll save those for the next instalment. Just in are two very vital reissues, namely the long awaited legit repro jobs of BOBB TRIMBLE's classic and amazingly good melodic psych albums from the early 1980s, "Iron Curtain Innocence" and "Harvest Of Dreams". The Secretly Canadian label have dug up and reinstated the original color photos that for cost reasons became black & white on the original releases, which is a trip in its own right for long-time Bobb fans. The CD versions have bonus tracks, and there's liner notes with Bobb comments, photos, newspaper clippings. Listening to the "Iron" CD now, and it sounds good, with definite clarity and isolation added visavi the original on several tracks -- and as I pointed out in Ugly Things, this legendary album has never been reissued, not even as a bootleg CD. Like Bobb himself once said, you waited so long and now you find it was well worth the wait... news-flash: stay clear of the vinyl version of "Harvest", as the sound was screwed up in the mastering. The "Iron" reissue sounds OK on both CD and vinyl.  Our hero with a "unicorn", now in full color ! |
|
Captain's Log, Star-date: August 2007
| First of all, I
encourage you to admire the bright color cartoon label design of the LEMON
FOG 45. Not only does it look great, but it's one of my fave
Summer tunes ever. Did you know that the Lemon Fog entry in
"Fuzz Acid & Flowers" is a complete fabrication,
submitted by a former band member as a prank? The main butt-end of
that joke was presumed leader Ted Eubanks, who popped up a couple of
years ago, after having been confronted with the hilarious rant in the
Joynson book, and explained in no uncertain terms that it was all
wrong. Last time I checked, this long bogus entry for the Lemon Fog
was still in "Fuzz". Despite reports of biblical floods in Britain and desert heat on the Balkan, the Summer up here has been much the same as always. My birthday just came and went and relatives generously equipped me with tools for enjoying music, inside when it's raining (a VPI 16.5 record cleaner), and outdoors when sister sun pays a visit (my first ever MP3 player). Right now it's Country & Western day in the Lama cave -- god bless Bill Haley for his r'n'r contributions, but it's his early country sides that really grab me. |
 |
On the
psychedelic front, I've been getting into TERENCE McKENNA. You
probably know a few things about him, yet a near-decade after his passing, I'm
not getting as many Google hits as I would like to. There is plenty of
material to learn from, but most of it is kind of scattered about. Here's one
place to start the journey into DMT elf-space. Understanding
the advantages of recorded sound and images, and recognizing his
hypnotic effect on listeners, McKenna left a massive body of lectures and
interviews behind, some of which can be found on the net. There's also a
couple of classic books which will be featured at our Feed Your Head website
in a near future. Tim Leary once introduced McKenna as "the real Timothy
Leary", a gesture both generous and accurate.
Summer vacation means buying less records, since buying records constitutes a
type of work task. Before taking a hiatus from the eBay sniper alley I did go
on a frantic buying and trading spree, which netted me the following display
items... all originals!
It's looking like a good Summer for reissues, as both CONTENTS
ARE and INSTANT ORANGE are recycled out of
New Orleans by way of Shadoks, and Raymond at RD Records has the previously
unreleased album from PAT KILROY & NEW AGE
coming up this month. Check out recent writings in Ugly Things on both
Contents Are and Pat Kilroy, while Instant Orange will be reviewed by me in
the next UT issue. There's also some coverage of these rarities in the Acid
Archives book, needless to say. And... in case you haven't heard... one of the
most anticipated reissues of the past decade is finally due in from World In Sound
later this year. I'm talking, of course, of the eyes of the Gecko peering
out at you from behind the magic peyote veil of COLD SUN!
Both vinyl and CD versions are planned, which is good since the original
Rockadelic release was last seen at $400.
Speaking of the Acid Archives, we were delighted to find a review of our book in the
current issue of MOJO Magazine (July issue
#164/Bob Marley cover): "...Insightful, witty, and descriptive reviews of
more than 4.000 almost universally obscure North American albums that have
rarely been written about anywhere. Skip Spence's legendarily low-selling cult
classic 'Oar' is one of the most 'famous' LPs discussed in the entire book, to
give you some idea of how rare these items are. Naturally, many of the albums
are of a psychedelic nature, but acid folk, garage and numerous other
manifestations of non-mainstream sounds - often privately pressed in miniscule
quantities - receive their full due too" (Richie Unterberger). There's
been talk of landing reviews in some other publications, such as Record
Collector (which never happened), but Mojo... now that's Major League for a
self-published, underground tome! Along with the Mojo mag came a freebie CD of
classic reggae, which I'm listening to right now, excellent roots sounds &
some dub... and my hearing loss finally cleared up... alrightee.
Some favorite trips from the first
half of 2007:
Best Reissue: The ROCKIN' BONES 4-CD box-set from Rhino. As far as I can tell they got everything right for this one, from the ultra-cool (and quite ambitious) packaging and non-geeky liner notes to the deadly line-up of 101 rockabilly killers from the 1950s. This is the box you wished you had on hand while being hypnotized by KICKS magazine rants back in the 1980s... indeed "Rockin' Bones" seems quite inspired by the Kicks world-view, both in terms of contents and attitude. Doug Sheppard says this might be Rhino's best box-set ever, and I agree. It's wild, it's jaw-dropping (like the multiple female orgasms on John & Jackie), it's crazy (Hasil Adkins is on board), and it's just plain necessary.
Best Rare LP: it doesn't happen too often nowadays, but "Deep Night" by THE SIXTH STATION managed to grab me like music did back when I was a teenager, playing it over and over while staring blankly into space. This is IT, and it's from the unholy year of 1982! To my ears a very sincere 60s basement folkrock LP, like Mystery Meat or Holy Ghost Reception Committee #9, moved via papal intervention to the early 1980s, and picking up "Helpless"-era Neil Young along the way.
Among Christian LPs, the Catholics tend to be the deepest and darkest, and The Sixth Station offers canonical evidence of this stigma... nocturnal sorrow and introspection, with absolutely zero happy gospel folk picnic singalongs. Check out the awesome cover -- that's how the album sounds.Best modern album: SHPONGLE "Tales Of The Inexpressible". I tuned out of the Goa/PsyTrance scene around 1997, as it seemed the genre stopped progressing, and it was just more of the same, except not as good, and I figured the people involved went on to designing sound for computer games or whatever. Well, I was wrong on several counts there, as I tend to be -- like this 2001 second album from British act SHPONGLE proves. The main musical engine behind the outfit is Simon Posford, whose name you might remember from Goa legends HALLUCINOGEN, and who is, for want of a better term, a kind of genius. He seems to put in twice as much work as his colleagues, and the outcome is a series of soundscapes that have become instant classics. The percussion work and manipulation of vocals are particularly striking. Shpongle is a collaboration with Raja Ram from the great INFINITY PROJECT (once upon a time in UK spiritual prog-rockers Quintessence!), and together they explore another path than the uptempo sine wave acid visuals of the Goa scene. Shpongle has been called "Psybient", and means basically taking the best bits from ambient (creative & evocative moods, global music samples) and psy-trance (a driving beat, a strong drug orientation, and lots of fun noises). Shpongle have made several albums and a new one is currently in progress. While waiting for that one, check out this great Youtube clip of their track "D.M.T", which features samples of none other than Terence McKenna. All this stuff connects man! There's been lots of other great music in the psybient/down-beat/chill-out sector happening the last few years, and more on this will follow.
Time for a another
capsule look at some obscure
albums not previously reviewed. LIVING SACRIFICE BAND
"Call To Brokeness" is a powerful, completely modern-sounding Jesus
rock LP from the early 1980s, with some dynamite tracks where female vocals,
fat production and strong guitar-leads combine just right... at times it's a little
too close to Heart or Starship domains, but the good stuff is must-hear. ROHRBACKER
HENDREN & KINGEN is another X-ian trip, in the typical CSN-inspired
mid-1970s bag... as most of their middle-tier religious colleagues, some tracks
go into spaces you won't enjoy, but there's a couple of dreamy flowing winners
on-board, and it's certainly not inferior to Chenaniah or Harvest Flight. KOINONOIA
"Latter Rain" was omitted from the Acid Archives book for reasons
unknown (= we simply missed it); nothing earth-shattering but a friendly
70s hippie folk sound with female vocals, should appeal to fans of Logos,
though not as good as that one. I've also been looking into a small pile of
British Jesus freak albums, but I'll save the details for an upcoming piece in
the coming re-launch of SHINDIG! magazine due
later this year. Finally, I must throw in a word for WIDSITH, which is simply
one of the best non-major releases out there in the rural/Americana bag... it
just reeks of class and commitment, and better yet: it's not particularly
expensive (I got mine for $35). Get it before it takes off a la Gary Higgins. Hear me now and
believe me later! And see you in September.
Captain's Log, Star-date: Mid-Summer 2007
|
Summer time
is here kiddies, and it's time to take a trip... to take a trip... into a
world so fine... of Crawdad
scans... and Pokora
5001... and new Ugly
Things... and classic
films... and swinging
cats... and emerald rats... it's groovy now... just put your head back. Putting my head back is what I've been doing a lot of late, due to an Ear Infection which makes all music sound even more weird and distorted than usual. The doctor says it may be my brain matter leaking out into the skull. Yeah! |
Geriatric complaints aside, all things are well as we head into the lazy, stoned days of June & July. I'd like to say that I'm not going to do anything of value, but some intriguing writing assignments will keep me reasonably occupied. More on this later; it's obscure and oddball as always. Don't forget to check out the excellent (even better than usual) new UGLY THINGS, where among other things the Steve Kacorowski aka STEVE DRAKE case is finally exposed in all its glory. On the Bizarre Context scale, the Kacz-man ranks second only to PALMER ROCKEY. The new UT also has an extraordinary and historically significant exposé of the mysterious acid folk avatar PAT KILROY, whose story is everything you hoped for and more. Also great pieces on the ATTACK, FREEDOM'S CHILDREN, various SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA MOPTOP NO-COUNTS, and much more.
| Hey,
the Acid Archives book can now be ordered via Amazon.com.
Our tome currently holds the #347,756
spot in Amazon' sales ranking, so I guess the swimmingpool I planned
on building will have to wait until next year, especially since we
live in a condo. Some new reviews of the book are in, including Round
& Round, TeeBeeDee,
and Beverly Paterson's Twist
& Shake. A bunch of new and old records have been beamed into the Lama house-hold, as usual. I snatched a cheap copy of Shadoks' terrific and soon-to-go-out-of-print TIME "Before There Was" LP; these are previously unreleased 1968 upstate New York recordings in a refined, slightly UK-flavored psych/artrock style. My most recent hallucination suggests that it may appeal to FREEBORNE fans. Also on Shadoks and a more recent release is the outstanding "Lazy Bones" by WITCH from Zambia. One of the rarest and perhaps the very best of the various African psych-rock-funk albums being touted, this one would have been highly rated even if it had been from Podunk, NJ... it has qualities and vibes that transcend any accusations of retro trendiness. A lot of people dig WITCH, so get it before it disappears. Time for a more sombre note in the Eternal Now. I have just been informed of the passing of one of my heroes, Doug Walden of CHRISTOPHER (Metromedia) and other bands. I first ran into Doug when researching some 13th Floor Elevators arcana, and we kept in touch over the years. Originally from Houston, Doug was fortunate enough to see the Elevators several times in the early days, and 35 years later still spoke with awe of the experience. In the late 60s Doug (a bass player) formed a band that ultimately wound up in Los Angeles with a Metromedia record deal, and out of this came the somewhat legendary Christopher LP, which currently trades hands for $600 or more. Rather than trying to explain why Doug was such a cool guy, read this interview I did with him some years back. God bless & enjoy the trip, Doug ! |
 |
New record
releases of note include two Nor-Cal CD garage trips from the Frantic Sacto
trickster known as Joey D. "SO COLD !!!"
is a surprisingly good round-up of mainly unreleased Sacramento & inland
vicinity 60s teenbeat. In theory this is a "completist" sampler to
file between the earlier "Ikon Records Story" and Big Beat's
"Sound Of Young Sacramento", but in practice it's just good old
teenage slop, snot and jangle, with a strong batting average... rather than
"completist" I would say mandatory, for any garage fan. The retrospective NEW
BREED CD contains some fine music too, although those familiar with the
band's regional hits "Green Eyed Woman" and "Want Ad
Reader" have already heard the strongest moments. Their CD does
feature a booklet in Frantic's frantic DIY style with one of the greatest
round-ups of memorabilia I've seen in a long time... a true feast for the
eyes. Four bonus tracks by post-Breed band GLAD
have been added, for those curious about that album. As with the Ikon 2-CD
set, the sound on these two discs is warm and organic, proving that it is
possible to make CDs from old tapes sound good, although almost no other reissue label
manages to pull this off.
ROKY ERICKSON is on his first ever European tour,
and recently drew an ecstatic crowd and very favorable reviews with an
appearance at Sweden's Hultsfred Festival. I didn't make it as it's way out in
the sticks, but those in attendance confirm that it was a success; one of the
high points of the whole 3-day festival of mud and no sleep. As of this
writing, Roky is in England where he's likely to blow them away too.
Roky Erickson fans
at the Hultsfred Rock Festival
And after a decade or so
of diligent research and interviews, Paul Drummond in England is ready to
unveil his 13th FLOOR ELEVATORS biography, a
massive tome of facts and stories that will finally give the Elevators their
proper spot in the 60s music pantheon. Out with a US publisher that fits the
subject well, the
Elevators "Eye Mind" bio is scheduled for year-end. And if that
isn't enough, the same house has one more book coming up on the subject of
psychedelic lifestyles, intense rock music, wayout people, and the figure
"13"; the
untold story of Father Yod, the Source Family & Yahowa 13 ! 2007 is looking to be a heavy year
for people suffering from Triskaidekaphobia.
It's all
part of a Mid-Summer Night's Scene.
Captain's Log, Star-date: May 2007
Folks, I have seen the future of rock and its
name is the FOUR O'CLOCK BALLOON! Yes, 45s is
where it's at this month, as obscure long-players seem to bring more rewards
when auctioned off on the Bay than at my portable Sesame Street record player.
Franz Kafka knew the score -- temporary feelings of spleen, fatigue and
weltschmerz can be avoided simply by readjusting your perpendicular focus from
12 to 7 inch vinyl. Or vice versa.
Not that obscure 45s is a game to be taken
lightly either. Recently while I was grooving with the non-LP 45 greatness of AZITIS,
the thick glass frontpiece to my stereo rack slid off its hinges, toppled
around in slowmotion before my eyes, and then crashed to the floor in dozens
of long and very sharp glass pieces (see below). You will observe two things: AZITIS aka
HELP is a Christian 45, and the glass splinters arranged themselves in
scary, meaningful patterns. What does this mean? Could it be...?
Partly as an effect of my current 7-inch phase, I became involved in the fun little list below,
brainstormed & hammered out at garagepunk.com from an original draft by
rare 45 maestro Mark "Boss Hoss" Taylor. The individual ranking
among the 20 discs will differ depending on who you ask, but at least from my
perspective this list covers most of the essential classics from the acid-punk
and early psych era (1966-68). As you can tell from the price estimates, this
field is as challenging and competitive as pure garage 45s and rare psych LPs.
| A
POSSIBLE TOP 20 OF EARLY US PSYCH 45s 1 - Human Expression - Optical Sound (Accent, $2000) 2 - Dovers - Third Eye (Miramar, $600) 3 - Stereo Shoestring - On The Road South (English, $1500) 4 - Remaining Few - Painted Air (Askel, $2000) 5 - Caretakers Of Deception - Cuttin' Grass (Sanctus, $750) 6 - Teddy & His Patches - Suzy Creamcheese (Chance, $300) 7 - Perpetual Motion Workshop - Infiltrate Your Mind (Rally, $750) 8 - Scorpio Tube - Yellow Listen (Vita, $2500) 9 - Dirty Filthy Mud - Forest Of Black (Worex, $750 with ps) 10 - Bees - Voices Green And Purple (Liverpool, $2000 with ps) 11 - Mystic Tide - Frustration (Solid Sound, $500) 12 - Third Bardo - I'm Five Years Ahead Of My Time (Roulette, $350) 13 - Something Wild - Tripping Out (Psychedelic, $400) 14 - Orange Wedge - From The Womb To The Tomb (Blue Flat Owsley Memorial, $750) 15 - Spontaneous Generation - Up In My Mind (Fevre, $600) 16 - Psychotrons - Death Is A Dream (BCP, $3500) 17 - Park Avenue Playground – The Trip (USA, $750) 18 - Electric Prunes - Shadows (Reprise, $2000) 19 - Brother L Congregation - Bringing Me Down (Kumquat, $1500) 20 - Sound Apparatus - Travel Agent Man (Black & Blue, $1200) |
However, if you move just one or two years beyond
garage and early psych, interest and going rates take a nose-dive. Most of the
big 45 collectors have no interest in hairy hardrock, and the guys who do
collect hairy hardrock want LPs, not singles. But of course there were good
local 45s cut in 1969 and 1971, just as there were 5 years earlier. To
test the validity of this hypothesis I recently aquired a stack of period 45s
on the COAST and STARSHINE labels respectively, and subjected them to rigorous
scientific testing. Here are the results.
 |
THE GREAT NON-EXPENSIVE STONER HARDROCK 45 BATTLE! Vancouver
Westcoast Freaks |
 |
| Vancouver B.C had a
rather impressive freak scene going in the late 1960s. Bands such as
My Indole Ring, Papa Bears Medicine Show, Mock Duck, along with other essential
ingredients such as psychedelic clubs (like The Retinal Circus), underground
magazines, and even top-class poster art (Bob Massey) all combined to
create a credible local variation on what was going on in bigger scale
in San Francisco; perhaps similar to how the local head scene down in Austin, Texas developed. I don't know too much about the Coast label, but their catalog presents a selection of 45s from bands who were happening at the time. Some of you may have seen the CBC video clips of the SEEDS OF TIME doing a Procol Harum cover & a few more tracks live, led by a good vocalist with a definite methedrine vibe. They managed to get banned in various cities, which speaks in their favor. The two 45s up for scrutiny here are the total sum of their output, as far as I know. "My Hometown" is a solid, ballsy rocker, based on a headbanger riff somewhat similar to "Spirit In The Sky", but with a more direct & gritty presentation. It's All Meat at their rootsiest is one possible reference. Not psychedelic in any way, but good cruising music for sure. The flipside is a jugband throwaway that didn't even make it through one full play here.  On their next 45 "Cryin' The Blues", the band added a piano for an obviously Stones/Faces-influenced sound, and a quite good one too. Jeff Eddington's raw vocals are right on the money, and the whole thing reeks of early 70s dirty rock moves. The flipside continues in the same style and isn't much inferior. These two Seeds Of Time 45s aren't druggy or even hippie-sounding, but it's too bad the band didn't leave more recordings (or a full album) behind, because they had a rather convincing thing going. It's hard to work up a similar enthusiasm for their Coast colleagues SPRING. Released immediately before the first Seeds Of Time 45, "As Feelings Go" is an enjoyable but somewhat bland take on the westcoast vocal harmony hippierock trip, sort of like Crosby Stills & Nash with emphasis on the Nash bit. It's a well-written tune with a strong bridge and a nice, somewhat derivative hook. There's good Hammond and some fuzz leads lurking in the background. Like the Seeds Of Time 45s, this was a minor hit, and it sounds like it. The flipside is even more Nash-like, a bouncy Brit-pop ditty that sounds almost like the Hollies except for the slight weakness on the vocals (ditto for the A-side). Spring would go on to release several more 45s, including one more for Coast. Incidentally, all three A-sides discussed here have been comp'd in the "History Of Vancouver Rock'N'Roll" series. More on the Seeds Of Time can be found here. |
 |
The
Warren, Ohio-based Starshine label is perhaps best known for the
classic and quite good MORLY GREY album
from 1972. This LP was actually the last gasp from the label, which
was founded by one Floyd Phillips in the Fall 1970. The three 45s
presented here were all released as an outcome of a local Battle Of
The Bands. The earliest in the series comes from the little known TRAVIS band, who have a period James Gang/Grand Funk groove hardrock sound. "Lovin' You" is based on a simple 3-chord riff, with meaty drums and half-assed vocals delivering horny lyrics. All over pretty similar to the "Dirty Woman" 45 by Merlin from Texas. The strong guitar break should have been longer; as it is the 45 is mainly a concern for Ohio specialists. The flipside is a weird, long and somewhat chaotic version of Steve Miller's "Living In The USA". Next up is a rather excellent 45, the psychiest one in this whole shebang, and one easy to recommend. The STARS & STRIPES do vintage late 60s drug-rock sounds on "Listen", which sounds like a lost track from a 1969 Mainstream label album. Classic Cream/Butterfly moves display a good guitar-organ flow, stoned vocals, and a strong wah-wah break. This track made it onto a recent DJ Shadow mix so a lot of people have heard it, whether they know it or not. Quite good, and odd that it's remained buried so long. The B-side is strong too, more in the expected raw Ohio hardrock style, with good riffs and an intense tempo-shift for the guitar break. It's about as good as the A-side, in a different way. Finally we come to BIGGY RAT, which upon scrutiny turns out to be a pre-POOBAH outfit. Buckeye guitar legend Jim Gustafson joins forces with a raw female vocalist who belts her way through two hardrock numbers. The B-side is an old Peggy Lee tune by Leiber-Stoller which despite some super-heavy guitar riffing and two dynamite solos is probably too rootsy for most people, including me. The A-side is an original titled "Look Inside Yourself", and like Stars & Stripes it has distinct traces of a westcoast hippie sound, this time in a mid-period Janis/Big Brother bag. Ballsy femme vocals and a sharp solo by the Grand Poobah makes for an enjoyable 140 seconds; a little like Touch from St Louis or Stone Circus on Rockadelic. By the way, the winners in the aforementioned Battle Of The Bands were FREEMAN SOUND, who had a retrospective album out from World In Sound recently. Their Starshine 45 is pretty decent, but not as good as the label's best. In 1971-72 Starshine was mainly a Morly Grey vehicle, cutting two 45s with the band (all tracks also on their "The Only Truth" LP) as well as a couple of unreleased tunes that were given a posthumous release in the 1990s -- they're funky hardrock in a less sophisticated style than the album; for completists mainly. There was also a 45 by Michigan band Ormandy (#7203, The Banker / Living Alone) which I have yet to hear. Some of this info has been lifted from the excellent Ohio music website, "Buckeye Beat".  |
Hope you had
an excellent BICYCLE DAY!
Here's how global hero Albert Hofmann spent the original manifestation, 64
years ago:
"...We went by bicycle, no automobile being available because of wartime restrictions on their use. On the way home, my condition began to assume threatening forms. Everything in my field of vision wavered and was distorted as if seen in a curved mirror. I also had the sensation of being unable to move from the spot. Nevertheless, my assistant later told me we had traveled very rapidly".
Somewhat related to this is a new edition of the classic "Brotherhood Of Eternal Love", originally published in the mid-1980s. Written by two British journalists, the book looks at the story of LSD from an organized crime & law enforcement angle, although we also get the basic storyline from Hofmann to Altamont. The closer it sticks to its core subject -- the Orange County-based Brotherhood ring of LSD dealers, and their cousin organization in Britain -- the better it gets, although the massive cast of characters and somewhat superficial journalese writing fails to fully grab you. Nevertheless, a mandatory read with lots of colorful personalities and interesting behind the scenes revelations. Despite the massive busts made in the mid-late 1970s, several of the main LSD ringleaders -- such as Owsley, Ron Stark and Billy Hitchcock -- came out with their hands relatively clean. Watch for an upcoming Lama article on a story with some immediate connections to the Brotherhood Of Eternal Love.
What's in
the bag this month? Well, a new GEORGE BRIGMAN
release for one thing. "Rags In Skull" (CD Bona Fide) is a
solid trip for Brigman fans, who like any American underground icon does what
he's always done, and as good as ever. Is it punk? Is it garage? Is it
hardrock? Who knows. It's got a wicked edge, lots of grungy guitar, and
George's ultra-cool vocals. The lyrics are as intense as ever, with lines like
"Some of my best friends are snakes" and "Suicide... it's not
what it's cracked up to be". More modern day sounds come from
neo-psych/prog favorites DUNGEN, with their brand
new album "Tio Bitar" (="Ten Cuts"). Only played it a
couple of times but can tell right away that I like it more than the preceding
album; flowing Nordic westcoasty 70s-flavored rock with top-level musicianship
(including an awesome saz break) and Gustav's strong songwriting. Caveat: I'm
a bit biased here, but then again, not exactly alone in digging this band.
Should also throw in a word for the recent PEACE BREAD
& LAND BAND reissue from RD Records, which I'd rate as among the
top 3 I've heard on the label, up there with the Spikedrivers (a precursor to
this band) and the old Bob Smith box set. It's hippie folkrock with a strong
political edge and an Eastern undercurrent; accessible sounds for
most psych heads, with the bonus of two outstanding unreleased tracks from
1969.
The new issue of UGLY THINGS magazine should be out soon, and will feature a
Lama piece on a typically bizarre story from the musical underbelly. Connected
to the main story is a tangent on tax scam labels and their often amazing
releases. I'm no expert on the subejct, but someone who's spent a lot of time
and money on these obscure rock & funk swindles is Acid Archives co-author
Aaron Milenski. Check out this
interview with Aaron for more on the tax dodge rock trip.
Dat's all for now. Next time we'll meet it'll be Summer!
Captain's Log, Star-date: April 2007
Depending on
what calendar you follow, the proper soundtrack for this week is either
"Easter Everywhere", "Rites Of Spring", or "April 1,
Day Of Fools". OK, I made that last album title up. I can't think of
anything clever to say, so let's get on to the music right away. I've bought a bunch of
crap as usual, taking advantage of a clearance sale as a somewhat controversial
British record label went defunct. Obscure titles worth mentioning were GOLGOTHA
"Old Seeds", which was very pro-sounding 70s jammy studio rock with
some sax & a Little Feat sound, not bad if you can dig the genre; RAIN
"Live Christmas Night", a typical unoriginal 70s local bar-rock
outing with lots of loud guitar and little of subtlety -- the CD reissue has
no track list and a completely blank back cover, because that's how the
original looked!; MOONSTONE from Canada was kind
of cold and cerebral on the first play, but opened a few doors into its soul
on repeat plays and would make as passable double bill with PTARMIGAN.
I also revisited, with some delight, the murky 19th Century potato cellar
realness of VULCAN'S HAMMER, which is the kind of
Brit-folk I enjoy... I'm trying to get back into the UK folkies after a too
long absence.
One of the most interesting releases of 2007 so far is undoubtedly JOHNNY
LUNCHBREAK, a local pre-punk/power-pop outing from a bunch of
Connecticutans, who cut an acetate in 1975 and then left it in a bargain bin
where Mike from Zero Street found it 30 years later. And it was great! Fans of
Jonathan Richman or the early Flamin' Groovies need to check this out, which is damn cool, well-written and
quite refreshing among all the wristslashing loners and belligerent
headbangers of 70s reissue land.
The only known
photo of Johnny Lunchbreak
Meanwhile, over in San Francisco a historical event, of sorts, recently
occurred when the comeback kid numero uno ROKY ERICKSON
was reunited with his old songwriting buddy and Elevator elder TOMMY
HALL, for the first time in about 30 years. Considering the expanded
state of both these minds, contact highs must have sparkled in a 30-feet
radius from their conversation, which was properly documented and witnessed by
many, since the event was a Roky concert. Watch for more disturbances of the
aethereal balance when Mr Erickson hits the European rock festival circuit
this Summer. The Alien is back & it's scary!
OK, some
more 50 mcg capsule reviews since we failed to deliver 500 mike jobs for them
in the ACID ARCHIVES book: JAIM "Prophecy
Fulfilled", a wholly soft & commercial late 60s top 40 sound with
orchestrations and vocal harmonies, so "lyte" that it makes Sage
& Seer sound like Morgen; down in Texas ROBERT
MARCUS delivers smooth loungey 70s melodic rock that could sound like D
R Hooker if you're in a generous mood, but otherwise is oddball marginalia for
lounge-rock fans -- the label is Ankh but he ain't no Damon; TIM EMERY's "Red
Garrett" is late 1970s pro-sounding bluesy rock with strong guitar leads
and vocals and a mystical Corpus-"Creation A Child" type vibe on the
best tracks, rather impressive; I expected agreeable 70s Dead moves from the CARDINALI
BROS, but it was bland and disappointing, recommended only to those who
think Good Dog Banned is a great LP; PEP PERRINE
"Live" is fairly worthless bar-band rock with bad comedy angles, the
kind of self-depreciating humor that requires many rounds of beer to seem
appealing; another disappointment was PURPLE SMOKE,
a straight lounge/nightclub band from circa 1970 with femme vocals, of no
particular merit -- kinda like High Treason but without any band originals;
the rare 21ST CENTURY SOUND MOVEMENT turned out
to be a post-garage club band with covers of things like "The
Weight" and "Hey Jude", some fuzz, off-key vocals and a fun ego-tripping drummer
can't rescue this one from being a bit of a disappointment, not to mention a lot later
than people have claimed; and finally the CHAIND 2-LP set, which had been
described to me as "Canned Heat-like", which it is, but better than
I expected white man stoner boogie and blooz and occasional rural jamming --
the band is tight, there's lots of non-trad guitar soloing, and nice use of
Hammond. Not bad early 70s local... the Bear sez OK, and the Blind Owl is
nodding before nodding off.
|
People from all over the world are writing us asking: who is the Lama? What
does he want? Why does he have a fake religious title when he's just a goofy
record collector? Valid questions all. Some of these may be answered
in a recent interview I did with the
French rock'n'roll zine "Dig It!"... and for those of you who don't
speak French, I've uploaded an English language version of the interview here. |
 Beware of copy-cat Lamas. For best spiritual results, always ask for Lama Sivart Doz |
There's also a new and substantial addition to my KEN
KESEY & THE MERRY PRANKSTERS chronicles, since the article I wrote
for Ugly Things magazine a couple of years ago is now available on-line. Read all
about the previously undocumented Acid Test in Houston 1967, and get a load of
background data and some rare clippings here.
Speaking of UT, a new issue should be out shortly with yet another "back
pages" contribution by yours truly... and this one is really weird.
Editor Mike Stax claims that there will be 2 issues published this year, but
he's said so for decades!
After this self-promotional interlude, back to the recent records & stuff.
The BABY GRANDMOTHERS release I mentioned earlier
is pretty heavy -- there's two long tracks totalling 30 minutes in the middle
that will leave many mouths hanging open. Not just because they are creative
and atmospheric acid guitar excursions, but because they were recorded as
early as October 1967. Lining this up against contemporary sounds coming out
of London (such as Cream) and the westcoast (such as Quicksilver) it's simply
a fact that these local Swedish stoners were on a world-class level. Over the
decades I've heard a lot of reverential local talk about FILIPS,
the Stockholm underground club where these tunes were taped, and hearing them
in 2007 makes the legends seem true. Between this and Parson Sound, it must
have been unreal then & there, and even more so if you consider that
Swedish pop bands like Tages and Shanes were still going strong at this point.
Other recent releases that should be of interest include unreleased material
(2 long instrumental jams) from the Meltzers aka SERPENT POWER, and a bunch
of recordings including the rare LP by SILMARIL
(see Acid Archives review); both these out on Locust Music and hopefully to be
reviewed more in detail once I've picked up copies. Shadoks in Germany have
given the outstanding bayou cabin fever private press classic RAYNE
another spin on the wheel, but it's so new that the detailed reports aren't in
yet... the rule of thumb for the label seems to be that master-tape sourced
releases (like Wildfire) sound good, while those that come from vinyl (like
Pete Fine or Michael Angelo) may be Cedar noise-reduced into blandness... being
an informed buyer is a must with $45 albums.
Here's some new and shocking info on Eternal Now mentor PALMER
ROCKEY, forwarded to us by skilled sleuth Matvei in L.A, in turn
quoting a Hollywood insider: "All I know is that Palmer died in the 90s.
He told me that he had burned all his films after moving to L.A., but a
Hollywood film lab guy told me around the same time that Rockey actually was
still renting a projection room from them and having them show him his 'Scarlet
Love' film every weekend -- ostensibly he was still 'working on it'
even then. But he's been dead for many years now so there's a good chance that
the lone print of 'Scarlet Love' is gone. Ya never know, though. I have the
soundtrack album -- he was handing them out at the theater for free, when he
four-walled the film in 1982 or whenever that was." In the same spirit,
it appears that Palmer would visit the post office and read his "mail from
Hollywood" out loud for passers-by. The year of Mr
Rockey's passing seems to be 1996. A posthumous Walk Of Fame star outside
Mann's Chinese Theatre is certainly in order... huh? It's already in place?
Well, I guess there is some justice after all.
|
Palmer Louis Rockey D.O.B 17 November 1921, Washington State D.O.D 24 April 1996, Los Angeles Enlisted US Army 16 May 1945, Fort Lewis, Washington Education listed: 4 years high school Civil occupation listed: Airplane fabric and dope worker [sic] Discharged 7 November 1946 Married Mary Ann Carson, age 21, on 2 June 1968 Divorced 20 June 1977 |
Captain's Log, Star-date: March 2007
 To my surprise it appears that some people actually read these Eternal Now pages, which means I should try and get my spare time priorities sorted. Less time spent shooting the breeze on chat forums, and more frequent updates to the anti-blog now before you. This is not a promise. In any event, all kinds of weird artifacts have been piling up here between Winter Solstice and Ash Wednesday, and I'd like to share some of them with y'all. Wanna play a game? What you see above, to the right and below is one of my favorite acquisitions within Drug Education, the only field that I "collect" in the classic sense. Yep, "Mainline To Nowhere" is screwed up alright, and can be seen more in detail at my Permanent Exhibition, which even comes with soundclips now that I've paid some $$ to get on broadband. Continuing this <cough> cultural tangent, this month's ACID ARCHIVES BOOK plug excuse is to inform you that the 2nd printing is now almost sold out, and that a 3rd run has just come off the printers. In case you're still missing your copy and can't find one right now, don't despair -- 100s of books will be up for grabs around mid-March and onwards. Lots of dealers in US & Europe carry it, and if you're an eBay hound you can find copies on sale there too on a regular basis. Reviews are pouring in from cool & hip people around the world, such as Terrascope Online, Turntable Lab, Next Big Thing, and last but not least Foxy Digitalis, who also have an interview with yours truly. Enough Lama naval-gazing for now (don't worry, there's more below), let's move on to some happening psychedelic music. Veteran psych-heads have muttered out of the corner of their mouths that maybe the recent 3-LP set by the VALLEY OF ASHES isn't half-bad, and since this is about as close to ecstatic recognition a contemporary psychedelic band can get with jaded trippers, I decided to check it out. The packaging is mysterious and almost totally devoid of info, but it seems to be some sort of music collective in Kentucky who have released a few more albums under various disguises. Inside & spread across the 6 sides of shiny black vinyl is semi-improv drone acoustic-electric underground head jams on a consistently appealing level. Comparisons to BEAT OF THE EARTH and AMON DUUL II have been made and make sense; I was even more reminded of CHRISTIAN YOGA CHURCH (except there's less organ) and Denmark's great FUREKAABEN, who cut two albums of acid drone in the early 1970s. Worth checking out if these names trigger Pavlovian drool in your mouth. |
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Some interesting albums I've run into recently
that are covered only in passing in the Acid Archives include J
W FARQUHAR, a fringe basement PA psych weirdo in the classic 1970s
private press style, with strange lyrics, strange vocals, primitive acid
guitar leads, an intense atmosphere, Dylanesque harmonica and even a drum
machine... not for everyone, but it will be recognized as a "find"
by most senior heads, I believe; also KAUFMANN &
CABOOR, a rural folk & s-sw trip that was omitted from our book
since the release date is 1984, but that looks almost like a typo, since the
sound is totally early 1970s and quite appealing... not many notches below WILCOX-SULLIVAN-WILCOX,
as an example; then we have the intriguing story of MISTRESS
MARY, a self-confessed CA "housewife" and
"artisté" (her spelling) who did a nice-looking & very charming
1969 vanity press of supposed country music, although the atmosphere is often closer
to late 60s femme soft-rock... amazingly enough she recruited Roger McGuinn and the BYRDS
to provide the backing on a couple of tracks; and last but not least someone's
managed to find a previously unknown Christian 70s rock LP that is actually
good, a band called BRIDGE (no relation) whose
"Jesus Is The Bridge" delivers a mixed bag of garagey rockers and folkrockers, with the classic DIY
sound, some female vocals, an arresting atmosphere, and even incredibly
strange vibes via a bizarre spoken word dialogue. Mistress Mary and Bridge
both have flew by on the 'Bay (=eBay), so no accusations of elitism, thank
you. On a related note, a skillful young tracker has managed to find the long
MIA DAVE BIXBY of "Quetzalcoatl" LP
fame, this being one of the very best loner folk albums around, and hopefully
to be reissued complete with story & additional material this year.
Speaking of reissues, MICHAEL JAMES "Runaway
World" is out from World In Sound on a very good-sounding CD reissue,
with liner notes that incorporate an interview I did with Michael some years
back... opinions are mixed on the album, but I liked it quite a bit when
hearing it this way, and the addition of some surprisingly good bonus
recordings of recent making must lead to two thumbs up from a somewhat biased
Lama. The almost exact, limited, band-released repro of the legendary first INDEX
album also landed here, and proves once for all that the severely noisy nature
of the old Voxx bootleg was Voxx-specific... it's still a crude and deeply
atmospheric recording, but the acetate-like noisiness of the Voxx is
history... so get this new one while supply lasts. Continuing on the slightly
biased note, our friends at Subliminal Sounds have come up with a CD release
that is already causing some excited noises, being the first ever album
release of legendary Swedish 60s underground band BABY
GRANDMOTHERS. This was a pre-Mecki Mark Men outfit who released just
one rare 45, played extensively live at the same local freak clubs as PARSON
SOUND, and stand as one of the relatively few physical links between
the beat & psychedelic eras in our arctic wasteland.
 |
Know what is fun? Buying originals of rare
psychedelic classics! This may not be news to you, but after the
extensive work of putting together entries for 4000+ obscure private
pressings for our book, I realized how special and precious those
truly great local/privates are, amidst all the good-but-not-great
titles that make up 99% of the "rare psych" pasture. Recent
aquisitions include an upgrade of the amazing DENNIS
THE FOX album, a lounge-rock-psych-anything extravaganza which
is spun from the same colorful yarn that has brought us greats like
Jade Stone & Luv, John Ylvisaker and even the Kaplan Brothers.
Dennis (photo at left), you're the man! A trade brought me an original gatefold copy of STEVE LINNEGAR'S SNAKESHED, my favorite album from Africa, even if it was made by some Boers in 1980. This was a trendy title a dozen years ago, but seems to have disappeared from the radar screen for some reason... terrific flowing westcoasty 70s rock with deep psych atmospheres on the 17-minute "Desert"... a new reissue may be in progress, I'm told. But there are also cheaper thrills to be had -- such as the "Early Writings" LP credited to ZAGER & EVANS. One side of this White Whale budget album is early Z & E (average pre-Beatle pop from their mid-60s band the Eccentrics), but side 2 turns out to consist of 5 tracks from the classic J K & CO album, which has very little or nothing to do with "The Year 2525". Weird, huh? Copies can be had for $7 or so, if you want to hang out with "Fly" and "Speed" on original vinyl. Thanks to Greg Petrovato for the tip on this odd bird. Hmm... that's all for now in the Eternal Now... time for a talk with the clergyman! |
Captain's
Log, Star-date: January 2007
I postponed my log updates until the holidays were over so I wouldn't have to
bother with Merry this and Happy that and yada yada yada, for which I'm sure you
are very grateful. The final laps of 2006 were nevertheless a cause for
merriment, due in no small part to our ACID ARCHIVES
book being finally out & briefly available & sold out & reprinted
& at least for the moment available again. The second run is actually
larger than the first, as an effect of the surprising interest and demand out
there. Thanks y'all!
 The dime-store Lama meets a true life Guru -- Patrick watches while Michael Bowen adds psychedelic colors to a page of his own 1970 book, "Journey To Nepal". |
One of the most exciting events of the past year was hooking up with beat artist and globetrotting scenemaker MICHAEL BOWEN. I had been conducting a sporadic interview with Michael via e-mail over a long period, until he in passing mentioned that he was now living in "Stockholm, Sweden". Since I had figured he was in Hawaii, and he had no idea where I was, the synchronicity of us living a few miles apart was jaw-dropping. Believing that signs should be taken seriously (I even quoted Bowen's old friend Ram Dass; "there are no coincidences") a visit from Michael and his young wife and son to the Lama cave was swiftly arranged. Meeting this icon in real life was quite a trip, and a lot of additional ground was covered via phone after our pow-wow. I won't try to summarize all the mindboggling stuff that came up, such as the fact that one of Michael's earliest and dearest friends was Jim Baker aka FATHER YOD, on which he shared some extraordinary stories from the pre-Source days in the 1950s. Of course, we also got into the things that Michael Bowen is best known for today, apart from his terrific art, which is starting the S F ORACLE, arranging the HUMAN BE-IN, and governing the huge protest outside PENTAGON. A lot of facts about these events are not yet fully known, or have been inaccurately presented, due partly to the hippie-leftists writing the history books. Michael Bowen's perspective, then and now, is less partisan and more intelligent. I hope to find time to put together a web-page for Michael over at our "Feed Your Head" website, for now let's just say that it was an afternoon I will remember for as long as I live. |
Meeting Mr
Bowen also directed me towards a couple of Timothy Leary-related DVD releases
I hadn't really bothered to check out. "Timothy
Leary's Dead" is pretty interesting but marred somewhat by several
awkward interview scenes, although the stock footage is cool. However, and
this is the reason to get it, there's an hour or so worth of bonus material on
the DVD (not on the VHS) with long chats with RAM DASS,
MICHAEL BOWEN, RALPH METZNER and others that is of great interest, both
for Leary fans and those wanting to hang out with vibes from the original LSD
scene. While ordering this, I also got "Timothy
Leary's Last Trip", a DIY documentary from the MERRY
PRANKSTER homestead in Oregon, with about equal doses Tim & Ken
Kesey, produced by KEN BABBS' son. I wrote a
review of this at Amazon.com and the IMDB, if you're interested.
Maybe there should be some year-end top lists here too. To be frank, I was
kind of burned out on "rare local private press real people psych"
after we finished the Acid Archives book, and the recent months have been
spent listening to something quite different, namely 1950s cool jazz. STAN
GETZ, GERRY MULLIGAN & CHET BAKER, MILES & even DAVE
BRUBECK -- those cats knew how to swing, dig? Between this, my yuletide
obsession with NAT KING COLE and the recurring
regimen of GOA PSY-TRANCE, I may be ostracizing
myself from the psychedelic in-crowd, except that there is no psychedelic
in-crowd -- any real acid crowd is out in the cosmic ether, man. This
ties in with my weekend Buddhism getting upgraded to a 3-day shift, so that my
sadhak work begins Thursday afternoon, 5 o'clock, which is when I punch out
from reality. I've been hanging out with LAMA SURYA DAS
of late, partly because his sanskrit guru name spells "L.S.D" (just
like mine -- Lama Sivart Doz -- but he's a real guru, and I'm more of a
dime-store, fake guru), but also because he's written some books that bring
the old East-West RAM DASS tradition into the
21st century.
OK, but there's still and will always be great music to trip out with.
Sunbeam's mighty fine and first-legit-ever reissue of MIGHTY
BABY's masterly "Jug Of Love" album offers warm and luxurious
support for any type of meditative practices, you don't even have to go on a
Sufi bender like the Babe guys did. Wonderful album, now with the quite
hard-to-find non-LP 45 track added. The extended "Neti Neti" Eastern
jam Martin Stone helped lay down for the SOUTHERN COMFORT
album was exhumed by Sunbeam last year and is a must-hear for Babe fans. On a
less sublime, in fact exceptionally crude note, the legendary INDEX
album is out on legit reissue from the Index guys themselves, now in better
(well, it's hard to make it worse) sound than Greg Shaw's old 80s repro. I've
seen this reissue priced really high, but patience and cojones usually leads
to better prices down the line.
Another buzz ticket of late has been PAT KILROY,
who appropriately was christened "inventor of acid folk" in our Acid
Archives book, just as Kilroy's name was popping up in various other places,
much like JAKE HOLMES did a few years back. Weird
about all these synchronicity things, unless you believe that JOHN
LILLY figured the plot out when he reported back from 100 straight days
on Ketamine that we're all under the careful micro-management of ECCO,
Earth Coincidence Control. ECCO rolled the dice and it came up
"Kilroy" for 2006 & 2007, and apart from the general buzz there
is an album in the pipes from the diligent Swiss clockmakers at RD Records
featuring unreleased recordings from NEW AGE, Pat
Kilroy's avant-folk trio. An interview, article, or such, will also appear on
printed matter. Too bad Pat himself passed away back in 1967 (maybe
"Lovely Rita" broke his will to live), but I bet he's smiling up in
acid folk heaven, with Syd Barrett patting his back.
Let
me be a real geek for a paragraph or two. Some of youse folks may have
seen references to vinyl discs being "VPI
cleaned" with fancy record dealers, and wondered what that
is all about. Well, all tech scoops aside, I recently decided to
submit this technology to scientific tests, by having three old albums
with three different types of sound defects cleaned on a VPI machine.
Audio images of "before" and "after" were created,
and donning my white lab coat, I scrutinized the empirical evidence.
The results were pretty impressive. There was an overall improvement
of fidelity (cleaner sound) on all three discs. Specimen
A, a clean-looking disc that didn't play as good as it looked
due to a poor UK Polydor Folkmill tax-dodge pressing, improved
noticably throughout, with passive noise much reduced. Now I don't
need to upgrade it anymore, woo! Specimen B
had what you call "mystery noise", which means that the disc
looked alright on both sides all over, but for some reason played
noisy on the second half of side B. We will never know what caused
that noise, but gone it is after the VPI elfs scrubbed it over. And
finally Specimen C, which one might call
a beat up & dirty disc, lost almost all the smudge type noise and
improved a whole step on the Goldmine scale play-grade, even though
the noise from visible scratches was naturally left intact, and in
fact made even more noticable due to the overall cleanliness of the
wax. |
 |
No wait,
here's a last-minute review of the new BEATLES
CD. I got
this "Love" thing from Santa and have played it 3 times so far. It's
strongly geared towards the psychedelic-minded Beatles fans, which means that
yer supposed to drop acid and listen to
it... as such, it's pretty cool. It's not a "remix" as much as a
collage from multi-tracks, so you get to hear things like "While my
guitar gently weeps" with only George's vocals and an acoustic guitar...
which is pretty interesting. The most successful trip is taking the drum beat
from "Tomorrow never knows" and overdubbing the vocals from
"Within you without you"... the worst part I've picked up is the
"Mr Kite" track from Sgt Pepper without all the studio gadgetry, so
you hear how bad Lennon's vocals are, and how lame the tune is (I used to like
it).
There's also some earlier tracks with a somewhat dubious selection, unless you
rank "Drive my car" and "I wanna hold your hand" very high
(I don't). Some tracks are presented in their entirety and with no or minimal
changes, but the top-flight re-mastering still makes them sound different,
much like the great "Yellow Submarine Songbook" from a few years
back. There's only one new overdub on the whole disc, all the rest is from
official version tracks.
Conclusion: George Martin is still an acidhead.
Captain's Log, Star-date: October 2006
 |
That was one
long Summer, wasn't it? Of course, I spent a good half of it working on the ACID
ARCHIVES book manuscript, which reached a final (yeah, right) stage at
the end of August, and is currently given the old Gutenberg treatment at a
printing firm. 300 pages of ecstatic rants over forgotten and truly marginal
moptop, stoner & hippie outings will be available with your local pusher soon...
let's say November. Watch Lysergia.com for more as the moment of birth
approaches. The other half of my Summer was spent with the blinds drawn to
watch the Football World Cup, and I don't regret either of these two pastimes
one iota, despite a vampire paleness to my complexion and a strange lack of
truly memorable games, not to mention an embarrassing performance by my home
squad. Still, seeing the Italians come through with a mix of heart & class
was a delight. Let's follow up on some old Eternal Now cases! After a Lama-supplied connection those CA-TX migratory birds in WILDFIRE have signed with Germany's upscale SHADOKS label to produce a gatefold reissue of their quite rare and quite good "Smokin'" LP from 1970. Should be out before year-end, and will be preceded by a CD reissue from the band themselves. Check out their website for more on customized amp jobs and stoner fashion tips. While in Austin, mention should be made of the recent DELL Computer TV ad, which uses a snippet of the ELEVATORS "You're Gonna Miss Me" and once more will have millions of kids embarking on the Quest to find out what "the funny little noise" is. Armed with Dell laptops -- like the one I'm typing this very sentence on -- they will hopefully be able to Dismiss People Who For The Sake Of Appearances Take On Superficial Aspects Of The Quest, such as filesharing P2P (parasite-to-parasite) freeloaders. And yeah, since everyone's asking, ROKY did get paid for the ad & along with Sumner and the new gang he's keeping the Erickson spaceship afloat the required 30 feet above the ground. |
URL Of The Week award goes to Mike Heitkotter in NYC, who directed
us to this
terrific gizmo, which allows you to find out what those "99.7%"
feedback guys on eBay really are good for. It's nothing but negative feedback!
I've already had use of this, which solves one of several problems associated
with eBay, and which they don't give a fuck about correcting. Another, even
bigger one, is the fact that a seller can with-hold feedback for a buyer to
retaliate if he gets a negative, which means that a lot of negatives never get
posted. What, may I ask, can a buyer do wrong after he's paid? Yet eBay fails
to distinguish between the vast seller responsibility and the simple buyer
responsibility, thus keeping crooks and clueless bozos afloat who should have been
shut down long ago. I could tell you some stories... but since this isn't
"Psychedelica",
I'm not going to.
While waiting for the new sample copy of the ACID
ARCHIVES book (second plug) to arrive we've spent some time updating
the various Lysergia websites, FEED
YOUR HEAD in particular. This website, devoted to psychedelic
literature and art (like books & stuff, y'know) is like that small ugly
child for which you have a special place in your heart, and I honestly believe
that this is where I will put most of my energies 10 years from now. After
some prodding from the occasional reader, several sections have been fleshed
out with scans and presentations of rare DRUG material from the days of old;
amusing government brochures and eye-popping magazine features in particular.
Wanna read a LIFE magazine piece on LSD from 1954 (that's "1954")?
Want to know why the creativity you experience under LSD is just a phony
illusion that will ruin your life? Wanna read a 5-page interview with David
Crosby from 1967 about the Byrds and acid? OK -- so maybe you don't. But
someone else might. It's all there at FEED
YOUR HEAD, the "Web 2.0" version.
Snapshot
from a typical BYRDS recording session
Out there in the real world, the really real world, it's as ugly as ever. Most
psych-heads are now probably clued into the sad fact that Adam Gadahn, the US
kid turned islamic terrorist, is the son of BEAT OF THE
EARTH and RELATIVELY CLEAN RIVERS legend
Phil Pearlman. A few astute journalists have followed this bizarre thread back
to its origins, which means that you can read about Phil's rise to fame in the
psychedelic underground in mainstream, acid-free newspapers like the Orange
County Register and the New York Daily News. There is a sad yet extraordinary
story in here, of course, with the father's laid-back hippie naturalism and
the son's dogmatic, vicious islamism. Maybe they'll make a movie of it
someday, although I think everyone would be better off if the whole bad story
just faded away.
So, any good music around then? Well, I've spent considerable time listening
to GOA aka PSYCHEDELIC
TRANCE the last few months, regurgigating onto the CD tray the 30-odd
comps I purchased back in '95 when the scene was peaking and finding the whole
mess still surprisingly tasty; creative, mysterious, fun & quite druggy. A
retread back another 3-4 years into Old-Skool techno (the old Belgian 1991
Ecstasy T-99 R & S rave madness) was however less appealing, and it's
interesting to note how differently these musical siblings have aged. So,
PsyTrance still kicks major butt, as verified by the PAUL
OAKENFOLD 2CD Goa
headtrip I recently bought cheap off eBay -- an unofficial release of a
late 1994 mix broadcast on British radio that even Oakie himself calls one of
the best things he's ever done. It's pretty amazing... if you want to check
the whole fluoro-neuro-sponge way-past-sunrise scene out, that is a very good
place to start.
Yeah, but is there any good music around, asks the restless "rock"
dinosaur between clenched teeth. Beats me. Well, I did get a new CD release
from those weathered Texan heads the OXFORD FILES, a cousin to the TOMMY
HALL SCHEDULE (see below), but with all original material and a very appealing
mix of genuine acidelia and timeless Texas pro-level rock music. I've found
myself humming the title track to "Clear Light Carnival" every day the last week, and there's plenty
more good stuff on-board, with the occasional Tim Leary tribute to spike yer
diluted 2006 sugarcube. Contemporary psychedelia lives, in case there was any doubt.
|
Back in geek-land, a copy of DENISE KAUFMAN'S
unspeakably rare pre-ACE OF CUPS 45 recently
popped up on eBay out of the blue, and after some strange twists ended up
staying in the Bay Area for a meagre $10.000 (ten thousand dollars). This is the
highest price registered for a "garage" era 45 so far, though I'm
sure it will be surpassed the way some of those moptop crazies are hunting
crude grooves 24/7. I tried consoling the disillusioned auction losers by pointing out that the DENISE track "Boy What Will You Do Then" (an admirable anti-Jann Wenner rant) in fact lacks a guitar break, but to no observable effect.
|
 |
And let it be
known, since I failed to mention it in my Ace Of Cups piece for Shindig!
magazine: the top deck is credited to "Denise" while the B-side, an
instro take on the same tune, is credited to "Denise & Co", the
company being members of local punks THE ANSWER
and Wee label mastermind Lonnie Hewitt. Between this and the incredible MAD
RIVER EP, Hewitt's r'n'b label has substantial acidhead cred. Hey,
here's a brand new piece
on Mad River & their connection to famous counterculture writer
Richard Brautigan. And while hovering over the Bay Area with Ms Kaufman still
in sight, here's a reasonably new KEN KESEY & THE
MERRY PRANKSTERS item, a tribute
issue of "Spit In The Ocean", 25 years after the last one (the
great "Cassady" issue, which also is a must).
And finally, to celebrate the completion of the ACID
ARCHIVES book (third and final plug) I kind of lost control on my
vinyl-spending and during a few weeks, lost in a feverish haze, aquired pricey
originals of PLASTIC CLOUD, STONE HARBOUR, MORLY GREY
and NIGHTSHADOW "Square Root Of Two". I
think I found the key on how to score the Big Elephants of psych-land -- you
just lose your mind and keep on losing it. What's next?
Captain's Log, Star-date: May 2006
Springtime
forever, lonely hearts in disarraaaayyy... as the KAPLAN
BROTHERS once sang! I'll spare you the details on how my busted knee
got even worse after clueless surgery performed by a young lady doctor who
probably got her MD degree via a telemarketing offer, so that I now have to go
under the knife again, in a few weeks. At least there's lots of funny opioid
pills to keep you happy in the interim; like William Burroughs would say, it's
only a question of finding the exact right level for your needs. Music has
seldom sounded as good to me as these last few months, whether revisiting old
favorites or striking up new relationships. A dozen old Lama vinyl wants flew
in via a package deal out of Cleveland, and I tell you there ain't nuthin as
cool as looking at a stack of old longplayers waiting next to the phonograph.
I find CDs increasingly less attractive, and have in fact begun another round
of eBaying out anything on shiny disc that isn't absolutely core to
collection.
 Mary Anne Paterson puts Sunbeam's best face forward |
Somewhat contrary
to this development I've been checking out the new and rather
excellent SUNBEAM record label out of
England. Founded by Richard Morton Jack who was also involved with the
terrific C.O.B reissue last year (see below), this label is recycling
lost and semi-lost folk, folkrock and rock LPs from the vintage years,
mainly British acts but also foreigners like soft-folkie Roger Rodier
(Canada) and hippie sitarists Oriental Sunshine (Norway). One favorite
in the catalog was the obscure 1969 album by GORDON
JACKSON, of which I have a review coming up in the next Ugly
Things issue, and is recommended to fans of the great rural stoner
Albion rock sound of MIGHTY BABY and HELP
YOURSELF. Another good one on Sunbeam is the one I'm playing right now, the Brit femme folk of MARY ANNE, who I've been curious about ever since spotting her rather appealing visage in one of the "Record Collector Dreams" books. Well, she's a looker for sure, which shouldn't obscure the fact that her LP is very good moody, slightly spooky quiet folk with definite psych and ethnic strands -- like Vasthi Bunyan's elder and less cartoonish sister. Don't miss... |
| I am sad
to announce the previously undocumented passing of Harold Moore, Sr, legendary
burlesque puppeteer and father of the infamous JR &
HIS SOULETTES, Oklahoma City's $15 wrong side of the tracks answer to
the Jackson 5, whose 1974 LP "Psycho-delic Sounds" has been
destroying brain cells among garage, funk and psych fans alike. The story of
Mr Moore Sr:s unusual form of home entertainment that involved a sock puppet
dressed up like a pimp getting it on with exotic OKC ladies of the night is
probably not yet -- may in fact never be -- fit to print in a conservative
publication such as the Eternal Now. However, it appears that when Moore
Junior was recently informed of this routine, he simply commented that
"it sounds just like something dad might do". Search the Net for
details on this new dimension of progressive theater, as well as the rather
excellent LP, and find joy in the possibility of a legit reissue of the album
from the intense Frantic label down the line. Everyone must hear the unique
"wah wah organ" put to use on songs like "Momma Love
Tequila". Everyone! |
 |
Up there in cyberspace interesting events
are afoot, too. The legendary Austin, Texas recording studio of SONOBEAT
has put up an impressive
website, which not only documents most of the bands that recorded there in
the 1966-1975 timeframe, but also offers soundclips of unreleased material. As
far as local and regional music goes, the Bill Josey Sr & Jr conglomerate
nurtured a world class herbarium, including acts such as the Sweetarts,
Thingies, Mariani, Johnny Winter, et al. Early support and occasional
overtures were given to the 13th FLOOR ELEVATORS,
who undoubtedly would have gone with Sonobeat if they hadn't signed with
International Artists. A few years later a legend of currently rapidly growing
stature was planted when the Bill Miller Project, a k a COLD
SUN was brought into the Josey embrace for a long series ambitious
recording sessions in 1970-71. Many aspects mentioned in my old Cold
Sun article appear in greater detail at the Sonobeat website, which is one
of my favorite web finds of 2006.
Have I
mentioned WILDFIRE here earlier? Can't remember,
man.... in any event, they tie in nicely with the Sonobeat story as it turns
out that their legendary mystery album from 1970 was in fact recorded at the
Josey Studio, i e: the same place and almost same time as Mariani and Cold
Sun! This seems almost too good to be true, but it turns out that Wildfire
became popular around Austin and UT in particular, and would spend substantial
time playing around town, before returning to their South California homebase.
When time came to cut a "demo" LP, they opted for Sonobeat's well
respected operation. Although only a handful of copies of "Smokin'"
have been found, not less than 1000 were pressed, and are probably sitting
around in TX and SoCal bridal chests waiting to be found. The band's
previously unknown Texas tenure can also be spotted on a few concert posters
from the time, which shows them playing the Armadillo HQ and other venues. The
Wildfire gang is back together again, and plan to put up a website as well as
reissuing the "Smokin'" LP, which is excellent guitarpsych/hardrock,
in fact one of the very best in the style from anywhere.
Cut out and chew
the piece of
paper above; in some cases it
contains LSD!
Captain's
Log, Star-date: March 2006
| This is supposedly
my Springtime Forever instalment, but since icicles are still weighing
down the Lama eye-brows, I guess it's an Endless Winter lament
instead. A great man who has lived through more winters and summers than most of us can hope to is LSD grandfather numero 1, ALBERT HOFMANN, who recently turned 100. Seems a diet of mexican mushrooms and Mutterkorn-alkaloide absorbed through the skin will keep you going long after the last Nancy Reagan has bitten the dust. And isn't it a promising sign that Albert Hofmann has greater brand name recognition than Abbie Hoffman these days? Big Al's centennial has been duly recognized and celebrated around the world, and a timely bonus is the new translation of Hofmann's acid biography "LSD - My problem Child", which was originally published 1980 and is notoriously hard to find. The new edition is a beauty, including a color inlay with great photos from the 1930s up to the present time. A must. Here's to you, Al! |
|
Speaking of books, I guess at least some of you have heard about a new and potentially exciting project likely to keep me busy for the major part of 2006, namely a BOOK version of the Acid Archives, our annotated discography of underground sounds from the 1960s-70s. Revisions and additions are in full swing and right this minute the letter "J" is being scrutinized from all possible angles. Watch for the book in a few months, full details and ordering info will be available as we approach the publishing date.
Admittedly, plowing through review CD-Rs of $300 "dreamy acid folk"
albums from 1973 that turn out to be dreadful Cat Stevens copycats takes its
toll, and it was obviously major synchronicity at play when I stumbled upon
the Shroom Music
website recently. This was the remedy -- obscure TX hardrock reissues from
the 1970s with blazing guitars and basement fidelity galore. I got in touch
with label founder Rich Patz and picked up CDs of Honest John, Blown Free and FALSE
PROPHET; the latter in particular was an intense acid guitar-fest of
the highest order, like Mahogany Rush zooming off on crystal meth. I was also
blessed with another album from my old backwoods stoner faves ORACLE,
now operating under the name SKÜLDEDOG, yet
still delivering their same inimitable brand of severely spaced out
guitar-psych asking the musical question "What is the missing link
between Yahowha 13 and 'Ruler Of The Universe' by the Strange?".
Rameshwar knows the answer, and via the two long tracks on the Skuldedog CD
from Shroom he'll let you in on the secret. Nataraja da nada!
It's been kind
of slow on the reissue front, at least along these Sylvan Shores, so I've been
filling idle time by crossing out obscure titles on my want list, including a
couple of dawn-of-time spoken word hallucinogen albums, such as the MUSHROOM
CEREMONY OF THE MAZATEC INDIANS, a Gordon Wasson-coordinated field
recording of Oaxaca curandera (witch-doctor) Maria Sabina as she drops some
shrooms and soars off into weird spaces, rapping and humming as she goes.
Dating back to 1956, it's the earliest recording of people under the influence
of psychedelics that I know of, and a cornerstone in any genre collection.
Folkways has a CD reissue ready for those who can't find the original vinyl
(which is rare, but not impossible). Similarly, I finally scored a copy of ALDOUS
HUXLEY's most lysergically oriented album, "Visionary
Experience", a recording of a lecture held in 1962 but not released until
several years later by Huxley's widow Laura. Aldous is in great form, superbly
eloquent and humorous, constantly pushing the envelope for our notions of the
human potential. Inspired by these recent aquisitions we've given the LSD
Documentaries website a face-lift, and will be adding sound-clips and more
down the line.
Continuing on our literature theme, I'd like to plug the soon
to be published (we all hope) TEENBEAT MAYHEM
book by garage research guru Mike Markesich. This will probably be the final
word on 1960s garage, the end result of decades of exploration into basement
rehearsals, church dances and disastrous prom gigs across the American
heartland. Something like 10.000 garage 45s have been identified, which is
pretty amazing if you consider that the "era" was only a temporal
blip between Mick Jagger on Ed Sullivan in '65 and Sgt Pepper coming out in
June 1967. Moptop Mike and his brain trust of garage maniacs around the
world are working 24/7 to classify, rate and scream along to some of the
greatest music ever, and the end result should be a
coffee-table book like no other.
(for even more ancient rants,
"The Eternal Then"
will allow you to enter the Akashic Library)
