PLAYLIST 8/20-22/10

Artist: BIG BROTHER AND THE HOLDING COMPANY
Song Title: "Piece of My Heart"
Source: CD: CHEAP THRILLS (reissue of original LP)
Release Year: 1968
As I said last week, I like to start the show with a classic. It doesn't get much more classic than this one. Janis Joplin at the peak of her powers.

Artist: THEM
Song Title: "Nobody Loves You When You're Down and Out"
Source: LP: NOW AND THEM (original vinyl)
Release Year: 1968
The artist that comes to mind when I see the title of this Jimmy Cox tune is, of course, Eric Clapton, who included it on the Derek and the Dominos Layla album. This version, featuring vocalist Kenny McDowell, actually predates Clapton's by a couple years.

Artist: CREAM
Song Title: "Dreaming"
Source: CD: FRESH CREAM (reissue of UK version of LP with bonus tracks)
Release Year: 1966
Speaking of Eric Clapton, here he is trading off vocals with bandmate Jack Bruce. Interesting how, in 1966, even people who would become known for long extended jams managed to record a song that clocks in at less than two minutes.

Artist: COUNT FIVE
Song Title: "Psychotic Reaction"
Source: LP: NUGGETS VOLUME 1-THE HITS (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Release Year: 1966
San Jose, California had more than its share of psychedelic/garage bands with recording contracts, including the Chocolate Watchband, People, and this band, which featured five guys all dressed up like Bela Lugosi's Dracula. Classic one-hit wonders, Count Five had one of the biggest hits of 1966 with "Psychotic Reaction," which for three and a half minutes managed to sound more like the Yardbirds than the Yardbirds themselves.

Artist: ROLLING STONES
Song Title: "Sittin' On a Fence"
Source: CD: FLOWERS (reissue of original US LP)
Release Year: 1966
The Stones, as well as being as gritty a rock and roll band as there ever was, occassionally showed a streak of country with tunes like this one. The Flowers LP itself was a US-only release that featured a collection of songs that had been previously released in the UK, along with true stereo mixes of a couple of their then-recent hit singles.

Artist: BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD
Song Title: "Burned"
Source: LP: BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD (original vinyl)
Release Year: 1967
About half of Neil Young's songs on the first Springfield album were sung by Richie Furay, due to somebody in a suit deciding that Young's voice was "too weird" to be featured prominently on the album. Luckily for posterity, he did get to sing on a couple of them, including this one. "Burned" was the first song on Young's triple-LP "Decade" anthology album a few years later.

Artist: ELASTIK BAND
Song Title: "Spazz"
Source: LP: NUGGETS VOLUME 2-PUNK (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Release Year: 1970
Just plain weirdness.

Artist: NAZZ
Song Title: "Open My Eyes"
Source: CD: NUGGETS (single CD released in mid-90s)
Release Year: 1968
Todd Rundgren found success the old-fashioned way: through trial and error. The Nazz were an important step along the way, as they were the band of record for his first, uh, record. An early version of "Hello It's Me," the song that would become his biggest solo hit a few years later, was the original A side of the first Nazz single. This song was on the flip side.

Artist: JEFFERSON AIRPLANE
Song Title: "Don't Slip Away"
Source: LP: JEFFERSON AIRPLANE TAKES OFF (stereo vinyl reissue)
Release Year: 1966
There is a perfectly logical reason I play more sets from the Airplane than from any other artist: they put out more albums (five) from the years 1966-69 than any other core artist of the era (the Grateful Dead, for example, only released three), meaning they have more quality tracks to choose from. Tonight's set, for example, consists of five tunes that I haven't played on the show since going into syndication. This first one is a colloboration between Marty Balin and Skip Spence, who would leave the band shortly after this album came out to form Moby Grape.

Artist: JEFFERSON AIRPLANE
Song Title: "Embryonic Journey"
Source: CD: WORST OF JEFFERSON AIRPLANE (reissue of original LP) (track first released on LP: Surrealistic Pillow)
Release Year: 1967
Jorma Kaukonen's signature tune. I think the word that best fits this song is "elegant", although "beautiful" works as well.

Artist: JEFFERSON AIRPLANE
Song Title: "Run Around"
Source: LP: JEFFERSON AIRPLANE TAKES OFF (stereo vinyl reissue)
Release Year: 1966
The first Airplane album was dominated by the songwriting of the band's founder, Marty Balin, both as a solo writer and as a collaborator with other band members. This tune from Balin and rhythm guitarist Paul Kantner is typical of the early Jefferson Airplane sound.

Artist: JEFFERSON AIRPLANE
Song Title: "Good Shepherd"
Source: CD: WORST OF JEFFERSON AIRPLANE (reissue of original LP) (track originally released on LP:Volunteers)
Release Year: 1969
Jorma Kaukonen is given credit for arranging this traditional tune from the fifth Airplane album. The song is a good example of how much the group's sound had changed over a three year period, moving in several different directions at once.

Artist: JEFFERSON AIRPLANE
Song Title: "Bringing Me Down"
Source: LP: JEFFERSON AIRPLANE TAKES OFF (stereo vinyl reissue) (also released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Release Year: 1968
One of the earliest singles the Airplane released was this Balin/Kantner collaboration from the first album.

Artist: SEEDS
Song Title: "Nobody Spoil My Fun"
Source: LP: THE SEEDS (original vinyl)
Release Year: 1966
Sky Saxon's band was a popular attraction on the L.A. club scene in 1966. They were also one of the first bands to feature all original material on their albums, such as this tune from their debut effort.

Artist: MODERN FOLK QUINTET
Song Title: "Night Time Girl"
Source: CD: WHERE THE ACTION IS: LA NUGGETS 1965-68 (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Release Year: 1966
The Modern Folk Quintet can be seen two ways: either as a group that constantly strived to be on the cutting edge or simply as fad followers. Starting off in the early 60s, the MFQ found themselves working with Phil Spector in the middle of the decade, complete with Spector's trademark "wall of sound" production techniques. When that didn't work out they signed with Lou Adler's Dunhill Records, cutting this track that sounds like a psychedelicized version of the Mamas and the Papas.

Artist: MOUNTAIN
Song Title: "Blood of the Sun"
Source: CD: WOODSTOCK: 40 YEARS ON: BACK TO YASGUR'S FARM
Release Year: 2009
"Blood of the Sun" is one of two songs that Mountain re-recorded for the Woodstock 2 album. This is the previously unreleased recording of the actual live performance at the festival.

Artist: LOVIN' SPOONFUL
Song Title: "Priscilla Millionaira"
Source: LP: EVERYTHING PLAYING
Release Year: 1968
Back in the early years of Stuck In the Psychedelic Era as a live show on WEOS I used to occassional play a "bad song of the week." Although I have no intention of re-instituting that idea, this song would have qualified. John Sebastian's tenure as band leader was coming to an end when this LP came out. Maybe it was for the better.

Artist: ELECTRIC PRUNES
Song Title: "I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)"
Source: CD: I HAD TOO MUCH TO DREAM (LAST NIGHT) (reissue of original LP)
Release Year: 1967
Only a handful of tunes make everyone's list of "psychedelic" songs. This one so well defines the genre that Lenny Kaye himself chose it to be the opening track on the original Nuggets album.

Artist: BEACON STREET UNION
Song Title: "A Not Very August Afternoon"
Source: CD: THE CLOWN DIED IN MARVIN GARDENS (reissue of mono version of original LP)
Release Year: 1968
Although Ultimate Spinach is the usually the band most cited as being part of the infamous "Boss-Town Sound" promoted heavily by M-G-M Records, the Beacon Street Union were the actual architects of the style itself. Already well-established in Boston, the band had actually relocated to New York when they became the first psychedelic band to sign with M-G-M. It was their signing which led to Ultimate Spinach, Orpheus and Earth Opera also getting contracts with one of the stodgiest of the major labels of the era.

Artist: OTIS REDDING
Song Title: "Try a Little Tenderness"
Source: CD: ATLANTIC RHYTHM AND BLUES, VOL 6 (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Release Year: 1966
One of the defining events of the psychedelic era was the Monterey International Pop Festival in June of 1967. One of the greatest performances at that festival was put on by Otis Redding, with Booker T. and the MGs along with the Bar-Kays horn section backing him up onstage. The show stopper of that performance was "Try a Little Tenderness", heard here in its original 1966 studio version (with pretty much the same personnel).

Artist: FRUMIOUS BANDERSNATCH
Song Title: "Hearts To Cry"
Source: CD: LOVE IS THE SONG WE SING: SAN FRANCISCO NUGGETS 1965-1970 (originally released on Muggles Grammophone EP # 1)
Release Year: 1968
Rock music and the real estate business have something in common: location can make all the difference. Take the San Francisco Bay Area. You have one of the world's great Cosmopolitan cities at the north end of a peninsula. South of the city, along the peninsula itself you have mostly redwood forest land interspersed with fairly affluent communities along the way to Silicon Valley and the city of San Jose at the south end of the bay. The eastern side of the bay, on the other hand, spans am economic range from blue collar to ghetto and is politically conservative; not exactly the most receptive environment for a hippy band calling itself Frumious Bandersnatch, which is a shame, since they had at least as much talent as any other band in the area. Unable to develop much of a following, they are one of the great "should have beens" of the psychedelic era.

Artist: JIMI HENDRIX
Song Title: "Astro Man"
Source: CD: FIRST DAYS OF THE NEW RISING SUN (song originally released on LP: THE CRY OF LOVE)
Release Year: 1971
A little known fact about Jimi Hendrix is that he was a comic book fan. "Astro Man", recorded in 1970, reflects that aspect of the man.

Artist: JETHRO TULL
Song Title: "Driving Song"
Source: CD: STAND UP (bonus track originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Release Year: 1969
By 1969 the presence of "underground" FM radio stations in most major US cities playing what would come to be called "album rock" was making it possible for an artist to be considered successful without having the benefit of a top 40 hit record. This was not the case in the UK, where top 40 itself was considered an "underground" format heard on illegal AM "pirate" stations broadcasting from offshore transmitters. This meant that British bands such as Jethro Tull were continuing to put out singles that were either only available as album cuts or not released at all in the US. "Driving Song" was originally released as the B side of "Living In the Past" in 1969; neither song appeared in the US until the Living In the Past LP was released in 1973.

Artist: DONOVAN
Song Title: "House of Jansch"
Source: LP: MELLOW YELLOW (original vinyl)
Release Year: 1967
One of the top names in British folk music in the 60s was Bert Jansch. This song was Donovan's way of acknowledging Jansch's influence on his own music.

Artist: LEFT BANKE
Song Title: "Pretty Ballerina"
Source: 45 RPM vinyl (original release)
Release Year: 1967
I played the stereo mix of this song a couple weeks ago. This is the mono mix.

Artist: MOTHERS
Song Title: "We're Only In It For the Money (side 1)
Source: CD: WE'RE ONLY IN IT FOR THE MONEY (reissue of original LP)
Release Year: 1968
The first Mothers album, Freak Out, had one side (of four) dedicated to a single concept. The second album, Absolutely Free, was essentially two concept sides, each with its own subtitle. The process was taken to its inevitable conclusion with the third album, in which both sides are part of the same concept. I could have gone ahead and played the entire album, but let's be honest here. When this album came out, most people had record players with long spindles for stacking records. That's why many people could recite the lyrics to an entire side of an album and yet have no clue as to what was on the other side. In keeping with the true spirit of the era, I'm only playing side one tonight. Maybe next time I'll play side two.

Artist: BLUES PROJECT
Song Title: "The Flute Thing"
Source: LP: PROJECTIONS (original vinyl)
Release Year: 1966
The Blues Project was one of the most influential bands in rock history, yet one of the least known. Perhaps the first of the "underground" rock bands, the Project made their name by playing small colleges across the country (including Hobart College, where Stuck in the Psychedelic Era is produced). "The Flute Thing" features bassist Andy Kuhlberg on flute, with rhythm guitarist Steve Katz taking over the bass playing, joining lead guitarist Danny Kalb and keyboardist Al Kooper for a tune that owes more to jazz artists like Roland Kirk than to anything top 40 rock had to offer at the time.