Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1535 (starts 8/26/15)

Artist:    Blues Magoos
Title:    There's A Chance We Can Make It
Source:    Mono LP: Electric Comic Book
Writer:    Gilbert/Scala
Label:    Mercury
Year:    1967
     Following up on their biggest hit, (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet, the Blues Magoos released a song called There's A Chance We Can Make It backed with Pipe Dream for their next single. Unfortunately for both songs, some stations elected to play There's A Chance We Can Make It while others preferred Pipe Dream. The result was that neither song charted as high as it could have had it been released with a weaker B side. This had the ripple effect of causing Electric Comic Book (the album both songs appeared on) to not chart as well as its predecessor Psychedelic Lollipop had. This in turn caused Mercury Records to lose faith in the Blues Magoos and not give them the kind of promotion that could have kept the band in the public eye beyond its 15 minutes of fame. The ultimate result was that for many years, there were an excessive number of busboys and cab drivers claiming to have once been members of the Blues Magoos and not many ways to disprove their claims, at least until the internet made information about the group's actual membership more accessible.

Artist:     Blues Magoos
Title:     (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet
Source:     LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released on LP: Psychedelic Lollipop)
Writer:     Esposito/Gilbert/Scala
Label:     Rhino (original label: Mercury)
Year:     1966
     The Blues Magoos (original spelling: Bloos, not surprising for a bunch of guys from the Bronx) were either the first or second band to use the word psychedelic in an album title. Both they and the 13th Floor Elevators released their debut albums in 1966 and it is unclear which one actually came out first. What's not in dispute is the fact that Psychedelic Lollipop far outsold The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators. One major reason for this was the fact that (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet was a huge national hit in early 1967, which helped album sales considerably. Despite having a unique sound and a look to match (including electric suits), the Magoos were unable to duplicate the success of Nothin' Yet on subsequent releases, partially due to Mercury's pairing of two equally marketable songs on the band's next single without indicating to stations which one they were supposed to be playing.

Artist:    Blues Magoos
Title:    Summer Is The Man
Source:    Mono LP: Electric Comic Book
Writer(s):    Gilbert/Esposito
Label:    Mercury
Year:    1967
    Following up on their successful debut LP, Psychedelic Lollipop, the Blues Magoos released Electric Comic Book in March of 1967. Unfortunately the first single from the album had two equally strong songs, one of which was favored by the producers and the other by the band. Radio stations were unsure which song to push, and as a result, neither made the top 40, which in turn had a negative effect on album sales. Most of the remaining tracks on the album were written by the band members, including Summer Is The Man, a song with an interesting chord structure, a catchy melody and somewhat existential lyrics.

Artist:    Thunderclap Newman
Title:    Something In The Air
Source:    CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    John Keen
Label:    Polydor (original label: Marmalade)
Year:    1969
    Thunderclap Newman was actually the creation of the Who's Pete Townshend, who assembled a bunch of studio musicians to work with drummer (and former Who roadie) John "Speedy" Keen. Keen had written Armenia City In The Sky, the opening track on The Who Sell Out, and Townshend set up the studio project to return the favor. Joining Keen were 15-year-old guitarist Jimmy McCulloch (who would eventually join Paul McCartney's Wings before dying of a heroin overdose in 1979), studio engineer Andy "Thunderclap" Newman (who had worked with Pink Floyd, among others) on piano, and Townshend himself on bass. Following the success of Something In The Air, the group recorded an album, but sales were disappointing and the group soon disbanded.

Artist:     Mountain
Title:     Theme From An Imaginary Western
Source:     CD: Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm
Writer(s):    Bruce/Brown
Label:     Rhino
Year:     Recorded 1969, released 2009
     Keyboardist Felix Pappaliardi worked closely with the band Cream in the studio, starting with the album Disraeli Gears, so it was only natural that his new band Mountain would perform (and record) at least one song by Cream's primary songwriting team, Jack Bruce and Pete Brown. If Mississippi Queen was guitarist Leslie West's signature song, then this was Felix's, at least until Nantucket Sleighride came along.

Artist:    It's A Beautiful Day
Title:    White Bird
Source:    CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: It's A Beautiful Day)
Writer(s):    David & Linda LaFlamme
Label:    Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1969
    San Francisco's It's A Beautiful Day is a good illustration of how a band can be a part of a trend without intending to be or even realizing that they are. In their case, they were actually tied to two different trends. The first one was a positive thing: it was now possible for a band to be considered successful without a top 40 hit, as long as their album sales were healthy. The second trend was not such a good thing; as was true for way too many bands, It's A Beautiful Day was sorely mistreated by its own management, in this case one Matthew Katz. Katz already represented both Jefferson Airplane and Moby Grape when he signed up It's A Beautiful Day in 1967. What the members of It's A Beautiful Day did not know at the time was that both of the aforementioned bands were desperately trying to get out of their contracts with Katz. The first thing Katz did after signing It's A Beautiful Day was to ship the band off to Seattle to become house band at a club Katz owned called the San Francisco Sound. Unfortunately for the band, Seattle already had a sound of its own and attendance at their gigs was sparse. Feeling downtrodden and caged (and having no means of transportation to boot) classically-trained 5-string violinist and lead vocalist David LaFlamme and his keyboardist wife Linda LaFlamme translated those feelings into a song that is at once sad and beautiful: the classic White Bird. As an aside, Linda LaFlamme was not the female vocalist heard on White Bird. Credit for those goes to one Pattie Santos, the other female band member. To this day Katz owns the rights to It's A Beautiful Day's recordings, which have been reissued on CD on Katz's San Francisco Sound label.

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    Life Is A Long Song
Source:    LP: Living In The Past (originally released in the UK as an EP track)
Writer:    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis
Year:    1971
    By 1971 Jethro Tull had already released four albums, as well as several non-album singles and EP tracks that were only released in the UK. One of those EP tracks was Life Is A Long Song, which did not get released in the US until the 1973 anthology album Living In The Past.

Artist:    Frumious Bandersnatch
Title:    Misty Cloudy
Source:    British import CD: The Berkeley EPs (originally released on untitled EP)
Writer(s):    Bob Winkleman
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Muggles Gramophone Works)
Year:    1968
    Frumious Bandersnatch (taking its name from the Jabberwocky character) was formed in San Francisco's East Bay area in the latter half on 1967.  The band went through several personnel changes in its early days; in fact, by the end of the year only drummer Jack King remained of the group's original lineup, supplemented by guitarists David Denny and Jimmy Warner and bassist Ross Valory. The band really started to take off, however, when they snatched guitarist/ lead vocalist Bob Winkleman from another local band called the Epics in early 1968. The band soon established a reputation as one of the best new bands on the San Francisco scene and in April and May of that year recorded six songs at Sausalito's Pacific High Recorders. Three of those songs, including Winkleman's offbeat tune Misty Cloudy, were released independently as an EP on Pacific High's Muggles Gramophone Works label. Only 1000 copies of the EP were pressed, and those sold out almost immediately. For reasons unknown, the band never signed with a major label and disbanded by the end of the year.

Artist:     Frumious Bandersnatch
Title:     Hearts To Cry
Source:     CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on self-titled EP)
Writer:     Jack King
Label:     Rhino (original label: Muggles Gramophone)
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 a socio-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, as evidenced by Hearts To Cry, the lead track of their 1968 untitled EP.

Artist:    Frumious Bandersnatch
Title:    Cheshire
Source:    British import CD: The Berkeley EPs (originally released on untitled EP)
Writer(s):    Jack King
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Muggles Gramophone Works)
Year:    1968
    The longest track on the Frumious Bandersnatch EP (taking up the entire second side of the record), was a tune called Cheshire. Although the recent British CD issue of The Berkeley EPs credits Bob Winkleman as the writer of the piece, the liner notes of the same CD make it clear that Cheshire is actually the work of drummer Jackson King; in fact, the song dates back to the band's earliest days with its original lineup. Like the band name itself, the title of the track reflects King's intense interest in the works of Lewis Carroll.   
       
Artist:    Simon And Garfunkel
Title:    I Am A Rock
Source:    LP: Sounds Of Silence
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    The success of I Am A Rock, when released as a single in 1966, showed that the first Simon And Garfunkel hit, The Sound Of Silence, was no fluke. The two songs served as bookends to a very successful LP, Sounds Of Silence, and would lead to several more hit records before the two singers went their separate ways in 1970. This was actually the second time I Am A Rock had been issued as a single. An earlier version, from the Paul Simon Songbook, had been released in 1965. Both the single and the LP were only available for a short time and only in the UK, and were deleted at Simon's request.

Artist:    Left Banke
Title:    Barterers And Their Wives
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Brown/Feher
Label:    Smash
Year:    1967
    The Left Banke made a huge impact with their debut single, Walk Away Renee, in late 1966. All of a sudden the rock press (such as it was in 1966) was all abuzz with talk of "baroque rock" and how it was the latest, greatest thing. The band soon released a follow-up single, Pretty Ballerina, which made the top 10 as well, which led to an album entitled (naturally enough) Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina, which featured several more songs in the same vein, such as Barterers And Their Wives, which was also released as a B side later that year. An unfortunate misstep by keyboardist Michael Brown, however, led to the Left Banke's early demise, and baroque rock soon went the way of other sixties fads.

Artist:    Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band
Title:    Ah Feel Like Ahcid
Source:    British import CD: Ah Feel Like Ahcid (originally released on LP: Strictly Personal)
Writer(s):    Don Van Vliet
Label:    Zonophone (original label: Blue Thumb)
Year:    1968
    Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band did a bit of label hopping before finally settling down with Frank Zappa's Straight Records in 1969. After cutting a few tracks for A&M in 1966 (only two of which were released), the band recorded Safe As Milk, the first LP to be issued on the new Buddah label in 1967. After Buddah passed on the band's next recordings, another new label, Blue Thumb, signed the group, issuing the album Strictly Personal in 1968. The band was still transitioning from its early slightly twisted take on the blues to its later avant-garde phase that they would become famous for. Ah Feel Like Ahcid is a solid example of that transitional sound.

Artist:    Grateful Dead
Title:    Dupree's Diamond Blues
Source:    45 RPM promo single
Writer(s):    Hunter/Garcia/Lesh
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1969
    The 1969 Grateful Dead album Aoxomoxoa was one of the first albums to be recorded using state-of-the-art sixteen track equipment, and the band, in the words of guitarist Jerry Garcia, "tended to put too much on everything...A lot of the music was just lost in the mix, a lot of what was really there." Garcia and bassist Phil Lesh would return to the master tapes in 1971, remixing the entire album for the version that has appeared on vinyl and CD ever since then. This particular track is the single version of Dupree's Diamond Blues using a mono folddown from the original 1969 mix. It has never been reissued in this form.

Artist:    Castaways
Title:    Liar Liar
Source:    CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Donna/Croswell
Label:    Rhino (original label: Soma)
Year:    1965
    The Castaways were a popular local band in the Minneapolis area led by keyboardist James Donna, who, for less than two minutes at a time, dominated the national airwaves with their song Liar Liar for a couple months before fading off into obscurity.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Dandy
Source:    Mono British import CD: Face To Face
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Sanctuary (original label: Pye; original US label: Reprise)
Year:    1966
    Ray Davies was well into his satirical phase when he wrote and recorded Dandy for the Kinks' 1966 album Face To Face. The song was a top 10 single in the UK, but was only available as an album track in the US. Later that year the song was covered by Herman's Hermits, becoming a hit on the US top 40 charts (but not in England).

Artist:     Kinks
Title:     Sunny Afternoon
Source:     Mono Canadian CD: 25 Years-The Ultimate Collection (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Face To Face)
Writer:     Ray Davies
Label:     Polygram/PolyTel (original label: Reprise)
Year:     1966
     1966 was the year that Ray Davies's songwriting began to take a sardonic turn. Sunny Afternoon, using a first person perspective, manages to lampoon the idle rich through mock sympathy. Good stuff, and the Kinks' last song to make US top 40 charts until 1970, when the international hit Lola gave the band a much needed career boost.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Fancy
Source:    Mono British import CD: Face To Face
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Sanctuary (original label: Pye; original US label: Reprise)
Year:    1966
    One of the best albums in the Kinks library is Face To Face. Released in 1966, the album features such classics and Sunny Afternoon and Dedicated Follower Of Fashion, as well as some lesser-known (yet excellent) tracks such as Fancy, a personal favorite of songwriter Ray Davies, who recalls coming with the song late one night on his old Framus guitar. My first guitar was a Framus, but I sure didn't come up with anything remotely as cool as Fancy on it.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    All Along The Watchtower
Source:    LP: Electric Ladyland
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1968
    Although there have been countless covers of Bob Dylan songs recorded by a variety of artists, very few of them are considered improvements over Dylan's original versions. Probably the most notable exception is the Jimi Hendrix Experience version of All Along The Watchtower on the Electric Ladyland album. Hendrix's arrangement of the song has been adopted by several other musicians over the years, including Neil Young (at the massive Bob Dylan tribute concert) and even Dylan himself.

Artist:    Steppenwolf
Title:    Magic Carpet Ride
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on LP: Steppenwolf The Second)
Writer(s):    Moreve/Kay
Label:    Rhino (original label: Dunhill)
Year:    1968
    Steppenwolf's second top 10 single was Magic Carpet Ride, a song that combines feedback, prominent organ work by Goldy McJohn and an updated Bo Diddly beat with psychedelic lyrics. Along with Born To Be Wild, Magic Carpet Ride (co-written by vocalist John Kay and bassist Rushton Moreve) has become one of the defining songs of both Steppenwolf and the late 1960s.

Artist:    Max Frost And The Troopers
Title:    Shape Of Things To Come
Source:    CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released on LP: Wild In The Streets soundtrack)
Writer(s):    Mann/Weil
Label:    Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year:    1968
    Max Frost was a politically savvy rock star who rode the youth movement all the way to the White House, first through getting the support of a hip young Senator, then getting the age requirements for holding high political office lowered to 21, and finally lowering the voting age to 14. Everyone over 30 was locked away in internment camps, similar to those used during WWII by various governments to hold those of questionable loyalty to the current regime. What? You don't remember any of that? You say it sounds like the plot of a cheapie late 60s teen exploitation flick? Right on all counts. "Wild in the Streets" starred Christopher Jones as the rock star, Hal Holbrook as the hip young senator, and a Poseidon Adventure-sized Shelly Winter as the rock star's interred mom. Richard Pryor, in his film debut, played the band's drummer/political activist Stanley X. Imagine that.

Artist:    Blues Project
Title:    Steve's Song
Source:    Mono CD: Projections
Writer(s):    Steve Katz
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Verve Forecast)
Year:    1966
    The members of the Blues Project came from a variety of backgrounds, including jazz, rock, classical and of course, blues. Guitarist Steve Katz had the strongest connection to the Greenwich Village folk scene and was the lead vocalist on the Project's recording of Donovan's Catch The Wind on their first LP. For their second album Katz wrote his own song, entitled simply Steve's Song. The tune starts with a very old-English style repeated motif that gets increasing complicated as it repeats itself before segueing into a more conventional mode with Katz on the lead vocal. Katz would write and sing simlarly-styled tunes, such as Sometimes In Winter, as a member of Blood, Sweat and Tears.

Artist:    Animals
Title:    Don't Bring Me Down
Source:    Mono LP: Animalization
Writer(s):    Goffin/King
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1966
    I originally bought the Animals Animalization album in early 1967 and immediately fell in love with the first song, Don't Bring Me Down. Written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Don't Bring Me Down is one of the few songs written for the Animals by professional songwriters that lead vocalist Eric Burdon actually liked.

Artist:     Cream
Title:     N.S.U.
Source:     LP: Fresh Cream
Writer:     Jack Bruce
Label:     Atco
Year:     1966
     The first Cream album starts off the with powerful one-two punch of I Feel Free and N.S.U. Although I Feel Free was a purely studio creation that never got performed live, N.S.U. became a staple of the band's concert performances, and was even performed by various other bands that bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce was a member of over the years.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Mother's Little Helper
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Through The Past, Darkly (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1966
    By 1966 the Rolling Stones had already had a few brushes with the law over their use of illegal drugs. Mother's Little Helper, released in spring of 1966, is a scathing criticism of the parents of the Stones' fans for their habitual abuse of "legal" prescription drugs while simultaneously persecuting those same fans (and the band itself) for smoking pot. Perhaps more than any other song that year, Mother's Little Helper illustrates the increasingly hostile generation gap that had sprung up between the young baby boomers and the previous generation.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Let's Get Together
Source:    LP: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off
Writer(s):    Dino Valenti
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1966
    Although Dino Valenti recorded a demo version of his song Let's Get Together in 1964, it wasn't until two years later that the song made its first appearance on vinyl as a track on Jefferson Airplane Takes Off. The Airplane version of the song is unique in that the lead vocals alternate between Paul Kantner, Signe Anderson and Marty Balin, with each one taking a verse and all of them singing on the chorus.

Artist:    Iron Butterfly
Title:    Belda-Beast
Source:    LP: Evolution (originally released on LP: Ball)
Writer(s):    Erik Brann
Label:    Atco
Year:    1969
    Although his tenure as guitarist for the band was relatively short, Erik Brann is generally regarded as THE Iron Butterfly guitarist. This is probably because the two albums he recorded with the band, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida and Ball, are by far their best-known work. Brann, along with bassist Lee Dorman, joined keyboardist/vocalist Doug Ingle and drummer Ron Bushy after the original band split up shortly after the release of their first LP, Heavy. He quickly integrated himself into the band, co-writing several tunes with primary songwriter Ingle, and even providing one (Belda Beast from the Ball album) without any help from Ingle.

Artist:    Iron Butterfly
Title:    Termination
Source:    LP: In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
Writer(s):    Brann/Dorman
Label:    Atco
Year:    1968
    Although most Iron Butterfly songs were written by keyboardist/vocalist Doug Ingle, there were a few exceptions. One of those is Termination, from the In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida album, which was written by guitarist Erik Brann and bassist Lee Dorman.
From a 21st century perspective Termination sounds less dated than most of Ingle's material.

Artist:    Iron Butterfly
Title:    Possession
Source:    LP: Evolution (originally released on LP: Heavy)
Writer(s):    Doug Ingle
Label:    Atco
Year:    1968
            Iron Butterfly was formed in San Diego in 1966, but soon relocated to Los Angeles. Founders Doug Ingle (vocals, keyboards), Danny Weis (guitar) and Darryl DeLoach (vocals, tambourine) were joined by bassist Jerry Penrod and drummer Ron Bushy for the band's debut LP, Heavy, which was recorded in 1967. Not long after completing Heavy, Iron Butterfly disbanded, and the album was shelved. Ingle and Bushy quickly formed a new Iron Butterfly, which began touring almost immediately. This in turn led to Atco finally releasing Heavy in early 1968. The album did reasonably well, peaking at # 78 despite the fact that the single from the LP, a Doug Ingle composition called Possession, tanked. An earlier version of Possession was released in 1970.

Artist:    Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band
Title:    Equestrian Statue
Source:    British import CD: Insane Times (originally released on LP: Gorilla)
Writer(s):    Neil Innes
Label:    Zonophone (Original label: Liberty)
Year:    1967
    The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band occupies a unique place in British rock history. In fact, calling them a rock band is a bit of a stretch, as they incorporated a wide variety of elements in their music, including skiffle, dance hall and vaudeville. I personally see them as the 60s version of vaudeville, as can be seen in the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour film with their performance of a piece called Deathcab For Cutie. The Bonzos even had a tap dancer by the name of "Legs" Larry Larson in the band. Equestrian Statue, from their 1967 LP Gorilla, was the first serious attempt by the band's primary songwriter, Neil Innes, to write a hit record. As it turns out, the group would not get a single in the charts until Urban Spaceman made the British top 40 in 1968. Innes himself would go on to greater fame by working with Monty Python member Eric Idle on a Beatle parody called the Rutles. He also provided the soundtrack for the George Harrison-produced feature film Time Bandits.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1534 (starts 8/19/15)

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Take It Back
Source:    LP: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s):    Bruce/Brown
Label:    Atco
Year:    1967
    After seven years of serving in the Air Force liason office at Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Aurora, Colorado, my dad got transferred to Weisbaden Air Force Base in Germany. Standard practice at the time was for the married GI to go on ahead of the rest of the family and find a place to live "on the economy." My dad, already having quite a bit of time in the service, was able to instead get a spot in a place called Kastel, which was a group of WWII Panzer barracks that had been adapted for use by American military with families. When the rest of us arrived in August I was happily surprised to find that my dad, in addition to finding us a place to live, had bought a state-of-the-art Akai X-355 Tape Recorder using money he had won at Lotto, along with a pair of Koss headphones. I of course had to go to the Base Exchange to look for pre-recorded tapes. Already having experience with reel to reel machines, I knew that tapes recorded at 3 3/4 ips had more tape hiss than those recorded at 7 1/2 ips, so I was resolved to only buy tapes recorded at the faster speed. Unfortunately several albums I wanted were only available at the slower speed. The problem was resolved a year later when my dad finally got a Dual turntable to hook up to the tape recorded. I immediately went out and bought a reel of blank tape; the first album I made a copy of was Cream's Disraeli Gears. I would often fall asleep listening to that tape, which meant I ended up sleeping through the last songs on the album, including Take It Back. I must have done some kind of sleep learning, though, since to this day I can quote the lyrics of the entire song.

Artist:    Love
Title:    Que Vida!
Source:    CD: Da Capo
Writer(s):    Arthur Lee
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    The first Love album was pretty much garage rock. Their second effort, however, showed off the rapidly maturing songwriting skills of both Arthur Lee and Bryan MacLean. Que Vida! (yes, I know that technically there should be an upside down exclamation point at the beginning of the song title, but my keyboard doesn't speak Spanish) is a good example of Lee moving into territory usually associated with middle-of-the-road singers such as Johnny Mathis. Lee would continue to defy convention throughout his career, leading to a noticable lack of commercial success even as he won the respect of his musical peers.

Artist:    Chocolate Watchband
Title:    Dark Side Of The Mushroom
Source:    CD: No Way Out
Writer(s):    Cooper/Podolor
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Tower)
Year:    1967
    Just who played on Dark Side Of The Mushroom is lost to history. What is certain, however, is that it is not the Chocolate Watchband, despite its inclusion on that band's debut LP. Producer Ed Cobb apparently had his own agenda when it came to the Watchband, which included making them sound much more psychedelic on vinyl than when they performed onstage (in fact it is doubtful that Cobb ever actually attended any of the band's live gigs). To accomplish his goal, Cobb enlisted the help of songwriter/musician Richie Podolor, who would later go on to produce Three Dog Night's records. Podolor put together the group of anonymous studio musicians that recorded Dark Side Of The Mushroom, which, despite its shady history, is a decent slice of instrumental psychedelia.

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    Long Day's Flight
Source:    CD: Underground
Writer(s):    Weakley/Yorty
Label:    Collector's Choice (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    Originally from the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles, California, the Electric Prunes were often mislabeled as a Pacific Northwest band, due to their popularity in the Seattle area. Interestingly enough, the band also enjoyed greater popularity in the UK than many of their L.A. contemporaries (such as the Doors). Long Day's Flight, an anthemic track from the band's second LP, was released as a single in the UK, but not in the US.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    I Don't Live Today
Source:    CD: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    Some things stick in your mind for the rest of your life. One of those for me is seeing for the first time a black light poster of Jimi Hendrix playing his guitar with the caption I Don't Live Today. I don't believe Hendrix was being deliberately prophetic when he wrote and recorded this classic track for the Are You Experienced album, but it still spooks me a bit to hear it, even now.

Artist:    P.F. Sloan
Title:    Halloween Mary
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    P.F. Sloan
Label:    Rhino (original label: Dunhill)
Year:    1965
    If there is any one songwriter associated specifically with folk-rock (as opposed to folk music), it would be the Los Angeles based P.F. Sloan, writer of Barry McGuire's signature song, Eve Of Destruction. Sloan also penned hits for the Turtles in their early days as one of the harder-edged folk-rock bands, including their second hit, Let Me Be. In fact, Sloan had almost 400 songs to his credit by the time he and Steve Barri teamed up to write and produce a series of major hits released by various bands under the name Grass Roots. Sloan himself, however, only released two singles as a singer, although (as can be heard on the second of them, the slightly off-kilter Halloween Mary) he had a voice as powerful as many of the recording stars of the time.

Artist:    Ken And The Fourth Dimension
Title:    See If I Care
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Ken Johnson
Label:    Rhino (original label: Star-Burst)
Year:    1966
    There was never a band called Ken And The Fourth Dimension in Nashville West, aka Bakersfield, California, aka Buck Owens territory. What Bakersfield did have, however, was the Johnson brothers, whose father was involved with the record business in Los Angeles, about two hours south of Bakersfield. Don Johnson was the bass player for a popular Bakersfield band known as the Trippers. When brother Ken talked Dad into getting his friend Gary Paxton to produce a record for him, he used most of brother Don's band, re-naming them the Fourth Dimension for just this one project. See If I Care was released in 1966 on the Star-Burst label, one of many small labels operating out of L.A. at the time.

Artist:    The Light
Title:    Back Up
Source:    Mono CD: A Lethal Dose Of Hard Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Anglin/Samson
Label:    Arf! Arf! (original label: A&M)
Year:    1967
    The San Bernadino/Riverside area of southern California is probably better known to racing fans than to music afficionados, yet the area did have its share of local bands filling up various venues in the area in the late 60s. Among those bands was the Light, who released one single, Back Up, on the A&M label in 1967.

Artist:     Johnny Winter
Title:     Bad Luck And Trouble
Source:     LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: The Progressive Blues Experiment)
Writer:     Johnny Winter
Label:     United Artists (original labels: Sonobeat/Imperial)
Year:     1968
     Johnny Winter first started getting attention while playing the Texas blues circuit. His first album, The Progressive Blues Experiment, originally appeared on the regional Sonobeat label and was subsequently reissued nationally on Imperial. Unlike his brother Edgar, who gravitated to rock music, Johnny Winter has remained primarily a blues musician throughout his career.

Artist:     Blind Faith
Title:     Presence of the Lord
Source:     LP: Blind Faith
Writer:     Eric Clapton
Label:     Polydor
Year:     1969
     When the album Blind Faith first came out, several critics questioned why Steve Winwood sang lead on this track instead of songwriter Eric Clapton. Many went so far as to say Clapton should have sung the tune, but after countless subsequent recordings of Clapton singing Presence of the Lord over the years, it's kind of refreshing to go back and hear Winwood's original interpretation.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Up Or Down
Source:    LP: Early Flight
Writer(s):    Peter Kaukonen
Label:    Grunt
Year:    Recorded 1970, released 1974
            Following the release of the Volunteers album in 1969, drummer Spencer Dryden left Jefferson Airplane and was replaced by Joey Covington, who made his debut on the band's live LP, Bless Its Pointed Little Head. Sessions for Bark, the first studio LP to feature Covington, began in 1970. One of the earliest tracks recorded for the album was the six-minute jam piece Up Or Down, which was written by guitarist Jorma Kaukonen's brother Peter. Lead vocalist Marty Balin decided to leave the band before Bark could be completed, and the tracks with his vocals were scrapped in favor of songs that featured the remaining members.
       
Artist:    Buffalo Springfield
Title:    For What It's Worth
Source:    LP: Retrospective (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Buffalo Springfield (revised version))
Writer(s):    Stephen Stills
Label:    Atco
Year:    1967
    Most people associate the name Buffalo Springfield with the song For What It's Worth. And for good reason. The song is one of the greatest protest songs ever recorded, and to this day is in regular rotation on both oldies and classic rock radio stations. The song was written and recorded in November of 1966 and released in January of 1967. By then the first Buffalo Springfield LP was already on the racks, but until that point had not sold particularly well. When it became clear that For What It's Worth was turning into a major hit, Atco Records quickly recalled the album and added the song to it (as the opening track). All subsequent pressings of the LP (and later the CD) contain For What It's Worth, making earlier copies of the album somewhat of a rarity and quite collectable.

Artist:    Buffalo Springfield
Title:    Mr. Soul
Source:    CD: Retrospective (originally released on LP: Buffalo Springfield Again)
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Atco
Year:    1967
    Executives at Atco Records originally considered Neil Young's voice "too weird" to be recorded. As a result many of Young's early tunes (including the band's debut single Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing), were sung by Richie Furay. By the time the band's second album, Buffalo Springfield Again, was released, the band had enough clout to make sure Young was allowed to sing his own songs. In fact, the album starts with a Young vocal on the classic Mr. Soul.

Artist:    Buffalo Springfield
Title:    On The Way Home
Source:    CD: Retrospective (originally released on LP: Last Time Around)
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Atco
Year:    1968
    Things fell apart for Buffalo Springfield following the drug bust and deportation of bassist Bruce Palmer in January of 1968. Neil Young stopped showing up for gigs, forcing Stephen Stills to carry all lead guitar duties for the band. By March, the band was defunct in everything but name. However, the group was still contractually obligated to provide Atco Records with one more album, so Richie Furay, along with replacement bassist Jim Messina, set about compiling a final Buffalo Springfield album from various studio tapes that the band members had made. None of these tapes featured the entire lineup of the band, although Neil Young's On The Way Home, which was chosen to open the album, came close, as it featured  Furay on lead vocals, Stills on guitar and backup vocals, and Palmer on bass as well as Young himself on lead guitar and backup vocals.

Artist:    Firesign Theatre
Title:    Coal
Source:    LP: Dear Friends
Writer(s):    Proctor/Bergman/Austin/Ossman
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1970
    From September of 1970 through February of 1971 the Firesign Theatre did a live one-hour radio show on Los Angeles station KPFK called Dear Friends. These shows were recorded and edited down for syndication across the country. Later, the comedy group compiled the best segments of the show such as Coal and issued them as a double LP called (naturally) Dear Friends.
       
Artist:    Pandamonium
Title:    No Presents For Me
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ponton/Curtis
Label:    Rhino (original label: CBS)
Year:    1967
    Originally formed in 1964 as the Pandas, Pandamonium released three singles over a period of two years. The second of these was No Presents For Me, released in 1967. The song presents a libertarian message ("there ain't no such thing as a free lunch") against a psychedelic backdrop. The resulting song failed to chart, as did the band's previous single, a cover of Donovan's Season Of The Witch, and after a final failed single in 1968 Pandamonium decided to call it quits.

Artist:    Steven Cerio
Title:    Theme For Counting Events (remix of Overfed)
Source:    CD: The Magnificent Pigtail Shadow
Writer(s):    Cerio/Pier
Label:    Wowcool
Year:    2013
    Steven Cerio is a multimedia artist originally from Liverpool, NY, who is credited with setting the stage for the new-psychedelic revival in New York City. A graduate of Syracuse University, Cerio wrote and directed the indy film The Magnificent Pigtail Shadow in 2012. The following year a soundtrack album for the film, which is narrated by Kristin Hirsch of Throwing Muses. The opening track of The Magnificent Pigtail Shadow is a piece called Theme For Counting Events, which is actually a remix of an earlier work called Overfed.
       
Artist:    Jigsaw Seen
Title:    We Women
Source:    CD: Old Man Reverb
Writer(s):    Dennis Davison
Label:    Vibro-Phonic
Year:    2014
    The Jigsaw Seen is an indy band based in Los Angeles that has been around since the 1980s. Their latest album, Old Man Reverb, covers a lot of ground musically, and at least some of the tracks, such as We Women, are bitingly satirical. The album itself was recorded at the legendary Abbey Road studios in London.
       
Artist:    Byrds
Title:    It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
Source:    CD: Turn! Turn! Turn! (bonus track)
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1965
    In late June of 1965 the Byrds began work on their second album's worth of material. Having already had success with covers of Bob Dylan songs, they naturally decided to record a couple more in the hopes of getting a third single out that summer. Those two songs were The Times They Are A-Changin' (which would get re-recorded a couple months later) and It's All Over Now, Baby Blue, which remained unreleased for many years. Baby Blue, which features Roger McGuinn on lead vocals, is now available as a bonus track on the Turn! Turn! Turn! remastered CD.

Artist:    Simon and Garfunkel
Title:    Scarborough Fair/Canticle
Source:    LP: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Sundazed/Columbia
Year:    1966
    After the reunion of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel following the surprise success of an electrified remix of The Sound Of Silence, the duo quickly recorded an album to support the hit single. Sounds Of Silence was, for the most part, a reworking of material that Simon had recorded for 1965 UK LP the Paul Simon Songbook. The pressure for a new album thus (temporarily) relieved, the duo got to work on their first album of truly new material since their unsuccessful 1964 effort Wednesday Morning 3AM (which had in fact been re-released and was now doing well on the charts). In October the new album, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, hit the stands. The title track was a new arrangement of an old English folk ballad, Scarborough Fair, combined with a reworking of a song from the Paul Simon Songbook, The Side Of A Hill, retitled Canticle. The two melodies and sets of lyrics are set in counterpoint to each other, creating one of the most sophisticated folk song arrangements ever recorded. After being featured in the film The Graduate, Scarborough Fair/Canticle was released as a single in early 1968, going on to become one of the duo's most instantly recognizable songs.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Ruby Tuesday
Source:    CD: Flowers (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Bakco (original label: London)
Year:    1967
    One of the most durable songs in the Rolling Stones catalog, Ruby Tuesday was originally intended to be the B side of their 1967 single Let's Spend The Night Together. Many stations, however, balked at the subject matter of the A side and began playing Ruby Tuesday instead, which is somewhat ironic considering the subject matter of the song (a groupie of the band's acquaintance).

Artist:    Lollipop Shoppe (aka The Weeds)
Title:    You Must Be A Witch
Source:    Mono LP: Pebbles Vol. 8 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Fred Cole
Label:    BFD (original label: Uni)
Year:    1968
    The Weeds were formed in Las Vegas in 1965 by vocalist Fred Cole, who at age 16 was already a recording studio veteran. They showed up at the Fillmore to open for the Yardbirds in 1966 only to find out that their manager had lied to them about being on the playbill (in fact Bill Graham had never even heard of them). Disenchanted with their management and fearing the Draft, the entire band decided to head for Canada, but ran out of gas in Portland, Oregon. They soon landed a regular gig at a club called the Folk Singer (where Cole met his future wife Toody) and after relocating to Southern California in 1968 attracted the attention of Seeds' manager Lord Tim, who got them a contract with MCA Records (now Universal). They recorded one album for MCA's Uni label (discovering after the fact that Lord Tim had changed their name to the Lollipop Shoppe) which included the single You Must Be A Witch. Fred Cole has since become an icon of indy rock, co-leading the band Dead Moon (with wife Toody) from 1987-2006. Fred and Toody currently co-lead the band Pierced Arrows.

Artist:    Steve Miller Band
Title:    Brave New World
Source:    LP: Homer soundtrack (originally released on LP: Brave New World)
Writer(s):    Steve Miller
Label:    Cotillion (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1969
    It took the Steve Miller Band half a dozen albums (plus appearances on a couple of movie soundtracks) to achieve star status in the early 1970s. Along the way they developed a cult following that added new members with each successive album. The fourth Miller album was Brave New World, the title track of which was used in the film Homer, a 1970 film that is better remembered for its soundtrack than for the film itself.

Artist:    Melanie
Title:    What Have They Done To My Song Ma
Source:    LP: Candles In The Rain
Writer(s):    Melanie Safka
Label:    Buddah
Year:    1970
    Melanie Safka was born to Ukrainian and Italian parents in the Astoria nieghborhood of Queens, New York in the late 1940s. While still in high school she performed regularly at the Inkwell, a coffee house in West End, New Jersey. While attending college she began performing in various Greenwich Village folk clubs, signing with first Columbia and then Buddah and releasing her first LP, Born To Be, in 1968. Inspired by a successful performance at Woodstock, Melanie released her third LP, Candles In The Rain, in 1970. The title track was her first top 10 single in the US, with a cover of the Rolling Stones' Ruby Tuesday doing the same in the UK. One of Melanie's strengths as a singer/songwriter was the diversity of her material, as tunes like What Have They Done To My Song Ma (which sounds like it could be written much earlier in the century) demonstrate.
       
Artist:    Glass Prism
Title:    A Dream
Source:    LP: Poe Through A Glass Prism
Writer(s):    Poe/Varano
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1969
    The El Caminos were a successful cover band from eastern Pennsylvania that did well enough to record a few tracks at Bell Sound Studios in New York in the early to mid 1960s. They eventually signed with RCA Victor, changing their name to Glass Prism to better reflect their use of the poetry of Edgar Allen Poe set to music written by band members Tom Varano and Augie Christiano. The band itself was known for its vocal harmonies and for the organ work of Carl Syracuse. The final track on the album, A Dream, gives drummer Rick Richards a chance to shine and was probably the most commercial souding tune on the LP (although the opening line, "In visions of the dark night, I have dreamed of joy departed", probably shot down any chances of the song being played on top 40 radio.

Artist:    Action
Title:    A Saying For Today
Source:    German import CD: Mighty Baby
Writer(s):    Ian Whiteman
Label:    Big Beat
Year:    Recorded 1968, released 1993
    Formed in 1965, the Action was a North London band best known for their dead-on covers of then-current US R&B crossover hits. Producer George Martin signed the band to his own Air Productions, and the band issued five singles on the Parlophone label from 1965-67. The band, which by late 1966 was starting to sound more like a California band, was dropped by the label before releasing a sixth single, and went into hibernation for several months, adding a new member, keyboardist/flautist Ian Whiteman, and developing a more jazz-influenced improvisational style. The group, which at that point also included guitarists Bam King and Martin Stone, bassist Michael Evans and drummer Roger Powell, eventually resurfaced under a new name, Mighty Baby, releasing their first LP in 1969. The band had not been completely inactive in the intervening years, however. Shortly after Whiteman joined, the Action made several studio recordings that acquired legendary status over the years before finally being released on a mini-LP in 1985 with no documentation whatsoever. The recordings were finally reissued in the EU in 1993 as bonus tracks on the CD version of the Mighty Baby album.

Artist:    Moby Grape
Title:    Omaha
Source:    LP: Moby Grape
Writer(s):    Skip Spence
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    As an ill-advised promotional gimmick, Columbia Records released five separate singles concurrently with the first Moby Grape album. Of the five singles, only one, Omaha, actually charted, and it only got to the #86 spot. Meanwhile, the heavy promotion by the label led to Moby Grape getting the reputation of being over-hyped, much to the detriment of the band's career.

Artist:    Downliners Sect
Title:    Glendora
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ray Stanley
Label:    Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1966
    Although they never had the massive success of the Rolling Stones, Kinks or Animals, the Downliners Sect had a solid run beginning in 1964, with enough staying power to cut three LPs and numerous singles over a period of years. One of their more notable tracks is their 1966 remake of a 1956 Perry Como hit, Glendora, about a department store mannequin. As interpreted by the Sect, the song takes on a cool macabre flavor.

Artist:    Leaves
Title:    Too Many People
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Pons/Rinehart
Label:    Rhino (original label: Mira)
Year:    1965
    The Leaves are a bit unusual in that in a city known for drawing wannabes from across the world, this local band's members were all native L.A.ins. Formed by members of a fraternity at Cal State Northridge, the Leaves had their greatest success when they took over as house band at Ciro's after the Byrds vacated the slot to go on tour. Like many bands of the time, they were given a song to record as a single by their producer (Love Minus Zero) and allowed to write their own B side. In this case that B side was Too Many People, written by bassist Jim Pons and  guitarist Bill Rhinehart. The song ended up getting more airplay on local radio stations than Love Minus Zero, making it their first regional hit. The Leaves had their only national hit the following year with their third attempt at recording the fast version of Hey Joe, the success of which led to their first LP, which included a watered down version of Too Many People. The version heard here is the 1965 original. Eventually Pons would leave the Leaves, hooking up first with the Turtles, then Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention.

Artist:    Ventures
Title:    Solar Race
Source:    LP: The Ventures In Space
Writer(s):    Bogle/Wilson/Edwards
Label:    Dolton/Sundazed
Year:    1964
    Despite having only three top 10 singles to their credit (two of which were different versions of Walk-Don't Run), the Ventures managed to record over 200 albums, by far the most by an instrumental rock band. Most of these albums were based around a particular theme; indeed, the Ventures are generally acknowledged to have invented the concept album. One of their most unusual albums was The Ventures In Space, from 1964. Joining the band for this effort was noted session man Red Rhodes, who created many of the album's unusual sounds using a pedal steel guitar. In fact, all of the effects heard on tracks like Solar Race were created using actual instruments (mostly guitars), rather than electronic devices such as a theramin. Quite an achievement for 1964, and one that holds up remarkably well nearly 50 years later.

Artist:    Music Machine
Title:    The People In Me
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: Turn On The Music Machine and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Sean Bonniwell
Label:    Rhino (original label: Original Sound)
Year:    1967
    After Talk Talk soared into the upper reaches of the US charts the Music Machine's management made a tactical error. Instead of promoting the follow-up single, The People In Me, to the largest possible audience, the band's manager gave exclusive air rights to a new station at the far end of the Los Angeles AM radio dial. As local bands like the Music Machine depended on airplay in L.A. as a necessary step to getting national exposure, the move proved disastrous. Without any airplay on influential stations such as KFI, The People In Me was unable to get any higher than the # 66 spot on the national charts. Even worse for the band, the big stations remembered the slight when subsequent singles by the Music Machine were released, and by mid-1967 the original lineup had disbanded.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1533 (starts 8/12/15)

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    19th Nervous Breakdown
Source:    Mono CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1966
    19th Nervous Breakdown is one of the Rolling Stones' best known songs from their first decade. Recorded in 1965 and released in early 1966, it was their first single of what would be one of their best years. The song starts with a signature guitar riff from Keith Richards and is known for Billy Wyman's repeated descending bass line near the end of the song. At nearly four minutes in length, 19th Nervous Breakdown brazenly exceeded the three and a half minute limit that was unofficially in effect for top 40 radio of the time. Stephen King made the song part of his "19" mystique in the last few books in his Dark Tower series, as one major character hears the song played on a transistor radio on the streets of New York City in the moments leading up to his "death".

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Who's Been Sleeping Here
Source:    LP: Between The Buttons
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1967
    Between The Buttons, released in early 1967, shows the Rolling Stones beginning to experiment with a more psychedelic sound than on previous albums. Brian Jones, in particular, took up several new instruments, including the sitar, heard prominently on the track Who's Been Sleeping Here. The next LP, Their Satanic Majesties Request, would take the group even further into psychedelic territory, prompting a back to basics approach the following year.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Street Fighting Man
Source:    Mono CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Beggar's Banquet)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1968
    The Rolling Stones were at a low point in their career following their most psychedelic album, Their Satanic Majesties Request, which came out in late 1967. As a response to charges in the rock press that they were no longer relevant the Stones parted company with their longtime producer, Andrew Loog Oldham and began an equally long association with Jimmy Miller, who had already established himself as a top producer working with Steve Winwood of the Spencer Davis Group and later Traffic. The first song Miller produced with the Stones was Street Fighting Man, which appeared on the 1968 LP Beggar's Banquet. Before that LP was released, however, the band recorded an even more iconic single, Jumpin' Jack Flash, which was the first Miller/Stones production to be heard by the general public.

Artist:    Vagrants
Title:    I Can't Make A Friend
Source:    Mono LP: I Can't Make A Friend 1965-1968 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    (Storch/Martin)
Label:    Light In The Attic (original label: Vanguard)
Year:    1966
            The Vagrants were one of several "blue-eyed soul" bands from New York's Long Island area, and were best known for their regular appearances at The Action House in Island Park, one of the late 60's most popular rock clubs on Long Island. The group consisted of Peter Sabatino on vocals, harmonica, and tambourine, Leslie Weinstein on vocals and guitar, his brother Larry on vocals and bass guitar, Jerry Storch (also known as Jay Storch) on organ, and Roger Mansour on drums. They released their first single, Oh Those Eyes, on the Southern Sounds label in 1965, and even performed the song in a beach party film called Disk-o-Tek Holiday. The following year the band signed its first official record contract with Vanguard Records, a respected folk/jazz label not known for issuing what was then called "pop" music. The group released one single for Vanguard,  I Can't Make A Friend, which was co-written by Storch, before switching over to the Atco label for a series of singles over a period of about two years. Following the breakup of the Vagrants, Leslie Weistein changed his name to Leslie West, and along with the band's producer, Felix Pappalardi, formed his own band, Mountain.
       
Artist:    Quicksilver Messenger Service
Title:    Who Do You Love
Source:    Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on CD: Quicksilver: Lost Gold And Silver)
Writer(s):    Elias McDaniel
Label:    Rhino (original label: Collector's Choice)
Year:    Recorded 1966, released 1999
    The classic San Francisco music scene (c 1966) had at its core three popular local bands: Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead and Quicksilver Messenger Service. Although none of these bands were at their artistic peak, they did epitomize the spirit of the city's counter-culture and the Haight-Ashbury district in particular. The Airplane was the first to experience national success, thanks to a membership shuffle in late 1966 that brought Grace Slick and Spencer Dryden into the group. The Dead followed in 1967, leaving only Quicksilver without a record contract as late as 1968. By the time they did sign their deal to Capitol, Quicksilver had already had its own share of personnel changes, including the departure of original lead vocalist Jim Murray. In fact, the only QMS recording I know of with Murray at the helm is this 1966 demo of the Bo Diddley classic Who Do You Love, featuring an extended jam that was typical of the band in its early days.

Artist:     Love
Title:     Softly To Me
Source:     Mono CD: Love Story (originally released on LP: Love)
Writer:     Bryan McLean
Label:     Rhino/Elektra)
Year:     1966
     Bryan McLean's role as a songwriter in Love was similar to George Harrison's as a Beatle. He didn't have many songs on any particular album, but those songs were universally among the best tracks on the album. The first of these was Softly To Me from the band's debut LP. Before the signing of Love in 1966, Elektra was a folk and ethnic music label whose closest thing to a rock band was the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, which was at that time very much into creating as authentic Chicago blues sound as possible for a band from New York. Love, on the other hand, was a bona-fide rock band that was packing the clubs on the Sunset Strip nightly. To underscore the significance of the signing, Elektra started a whole new numbering series for Love's debut album.

Artist:    Beach Boys
Title:    Wendy
Source:    Mono CD: Good Vibrations-Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys (originally released on LP: All Summer Long and included on EP: Four By The Beach Boys)
Writer(s):    Wilson/Love
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1964
            Despite having the British Invasion to contend with, the Beach Boys did quite well in 1964, chalking up their first #1 hit (I Get Around), and releasing three successful LPs. Perhaps the best of these was All Summer Long, which, in addition to I Get Around and the title track, included two songs that would make the Billboard top 100 despite not being released as singles. The two songs, Wendy and Little Honda, appeared on the group's one and only Extended Play release, Four By The Beach Boys, with Wendy peaking at # 44 and Little Honda at # 65. Wendy itself is an example of Brian Wilson's growing sophistication as a composer, with several unusual chord progressions throughout the song.
       
Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    If
Source:    LP: Atom Heart Mother
Writer(s):    Roger Waters
Label:    Harvest
Year:    1970
    Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother album was the band's first LP to go all the way to the top of the British charts. Like its predecessor, Ummagumma, Atom Heart Mother features the entire band on one side of the LP, with the individual members each contributing one tune to the other. Roger Waters' entry was the quiet and introspective If, with Waters's acoustic guitar being the primary focus of the track, which opens side two of the LP.
       
Artist:    Canned Heat
Title:    Poor Moon
Source:    CD: The Very Best Of Canned Heat (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Al Wilson
Label:    Capitol (original label: Liberty)
Year:    1969
            Poor Moon is a Canned Heat tune written by guitarist Al "Blind Owl" Wilson. The song was released as a single in 1969, but only made it to the # 113 spot on the charts. As the song was not included on any albums at the time, it qualifies as perhaps the most obscure song in the entire Canned Heat catalog.
       
Artist:    Peacepipe
Title:    The Sun Won't Shine Forever
Source:    CD: A Deadly Dose Of Wild Psych (originally released as stereo 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jon Uzonyi
Label:    Arf! Arf! (original label: Accent)
Year:    1969
    Peacepipe was a Southern California band led by guitarist John Uzonyi, who wrote both sides of the band's only single, The Sun Won't Shine Forever b/w Lazy River Blues, released in 1969. The following year Peacepipe recorded an entier album's worth of material that went unreleased until 1995. The 1995 CD Rockadelic, which collects all that unreleased material, does not include either side of the single.

Artist:    Chambers Brothers
Title:    Time Has Come Today
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on LP: The Time Has Come)
Writer(s):    Joe and Willie Chambers
Label:    Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1967
    One of the quintessential songs of the psychedelic era is the Chambers Brothers' classic Time Has Come Today. The song was originally recorded and issued as a single in 1966. The more familiar version heard here, however, was recorded in 1967 for the album The Time Has Come. The LP version of the song runs about eleven minutes, way too long for a 45 RPM record, so before releasing the song as a single for the second time, engineers at Columbia cut the song down to around 3 minutes. The edits proved so jarring that the record was recalled and a re-edited version, clocking in at 4:57 became the third and final single version of the song, hitting the charts in 1968.

Artist:     Blues Magoos
Title:     (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet
Source:     LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released on LP: Psychedelic Lollipop)
Writer:     Esposito/Gilbert/Scala
Label:     Rhino (original label: Mercury)
Year:     1966
     The Blues Magoos (original spelling: Bloos, not surprising for a bunch of guys from the Bronx) were either the first or second band to use the word psychedelic in an album title. Both they and the 13th Floor Elevators released their debut albums in 1966 and it is unclear which one actually came out first. What's not in dispute is the fact that Psychedelic Lollipop far outsold The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators. One major reason for this was the fact that (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet was a huge national hit in early 1967, which helped album sales considerably. Despite having a unique sound and a look to match (including electric suits), the Magoos were unable to duplicate the success of Nothin' Yet on subsequent releases, partially due to Mercury's pairing of two equally marketable songs on the band's next single without indicating to stations which one they were supposed to be playing.

Artist:    Turtles
Title:     She's My Girl
Source:     20 Greatest Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:     Bonner/Gordon
Label:     Rhino (original label: White Whale)
Year:     1967
     After a moderate amount of success in 1965 with a series of singles starting with a cover of Bob Dylan's It Ain't Me Babe, the Turtles found themselves running out of steam by the end of 1966. Rather than throw in the towel, they enlisted the services of the Bonner/Gordon songwriting team and recorded their most successful single, Happy Together, in 1967. They dipped into the same well for She's My Girl later the same year.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Passing The Time
Source:    LP: Wheels Of Fire
Writer(s):    Baker/Taylor
Label:    Atco
Year:    1968
    Although Jack Bruce is generally acknowledged as the member of Cream that provided the most psychedelic material that the band recorded, drummer Ginger Baker gave him a run for his money on the studio half of their third LP, Wheels Of Fire. Perhaps the best of these was Passing The Time, which alternates between a slow, dreamlike section notable for its use of a calliope and a fast section that rocks out as hard as anything the band performed live in concert.

Artist:     Jethro Tull
Title:     Bouree
Source:     LP: Stand Up
Writer:     Ian Anderson
Label:     Chrysalis
Year:     1969
     The second Jethro Tull album, Stand Up, saw the band moving a considerable distance from its blues-rock roots, as flautist Ian Anderson asserted himself as leader and sole songwriter for the group. Nowhere is that more evident than on the instrumental Bouree, which successfully melds jazz and classical influences into the Jethro Tull sound.

Artist:     Kinks
Title:     All Day And All Of The Night
Source:     45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer:     Ray Davies
Label:     Eric (original label: Reprise)
Year:     1964
     Following up on their worldwide hit You Really Got Me, the Kinks proved that lightning could indeed strike twice with All Day And All Of The Night. Although there have been rumors over the years that the guitar solo on the track may have been played by studio guitarist Jimmy Page, reliable sources insist that it was solely the work of Dave Davies, who reportedly slashed his speakers to achieve the desired sound.

Artist:    Philisteens
Title:    I Get Mad
Source:    LP: Philisteens
Writer(s):    Otis/Neil/Glover
Label:    Radio Free America
Year:    1982
    As strange as it may seem at first, there were actually several American rock bands operating in Germany in the late 1960s. Some of these bands were made up of GIs stationed at various bases, while others were formed by high school aged military dependents. Among the best of these bands was the Gobi Desert Canoe Club, whose membership came mostly from Ramstein Air Force Base. The driving force of the Canoe Club was a guy named Larry Otis, a high school senior who was generally acknowledged to be the best guitarist around. Larry's brother Jeff and I were dating twin sisters at the time, so I occasionally got the chance to hear Larry practicing in the room he and Jeff shared. In fact, Larry spent nearly all of his spare time practicing, which pretty much explains how he got to be so good. All of us left Germany at around the same time, and I lost contact with the Otis brothers for several years. By the late 1970s I had moved to Albuquerque, NM, and ran into Jeff near the University of New Mexico campus sometime around 1980. I found out that Larry was also living in town and was playing guitar professionally. It turns out he was in a three-piece group called the Philisteens, providing the bulk of the lead vocals as well as all of the guitar work, and co-writing all the band's songs, such as I Get Mad, with the other two members, drummer Mike Glover and bassist Roger Neil. The Philisteens recorded a self-titled LP in 1982. Not long after that Otis left the group, and would next resurface as a member of Crawling Walls. The Philisteens, meanwhile, continued on with guitarist Steve LaRue, relocating to Los Angeles and eventually signing with MCA Records.
       
Artist:    Crawling Walls
Title:    The Brain That Wouldn't Fry
Source:    LP: Inner Limits
Writer(s):    Bob Fountain
Label:    Voxx
Year:    1985  
    The Crawling Walls, from Albuquerque, NM, was one of the first "Neo-Psychedelic" bands of the 80s. Led by Bob Fountain, this band featured guitarist Larry Otis, whom I've known since we were in high school on a military base in Germany. How this LP, which I found in the WEOS vinyl archives a few years back, came to upstate New York from New Mexico is beyond me. Oddly enough, both an LP and an EP by one of Larry's earlier Albuquerque bands, the Philisteens, was also in the archives. If anyone has any info on how these rare pressings found their way up here, I'd love to hear it, as I lost contact with Larry back in the mid-1980s when he left Albuquerque to move to....umm, somewhere in New York.

Artist:    Fut
Title:    Have You Heard The Word
Source:    Mono British import CD: Love, Poetry And Revolution (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Kipner/Lawrie/Groves
Label:    Grapefruit (original label: Beacon)
Year:    1970
            Have You Heard The Word was the result of a drunken 1969 recording session attended by Steve Groves and Steve Kipner (known collectively as Tin Tin), Maurice Gibb (of the Bee Gees) and Gibbs's brother-in-law Billie Lawrie. A tape of the session was leaked to Beacon Records, who issued it as a single credited to the Fut. The song has been repeated mistaken for a lost Beatle track; in fact, Yoko One even tried to copyright the piece as a lost John Lennon composition in 1985.

Artist:    Booker T. And The MGs
Title:    Time Is Tight
Source:    LP: Up Tight
Writer(s):    Jones/Jackson/Cropper/Dunn
Label:    Stax
Year:    1969
    Time Is Tight was originally recorded for the soundtrack of the 1968 movie Up Tight by Booker T. And The MGs.  The song proved popular enough to be issued as a single, but the group elected to record an entirely new version of the tune for single release. The single version slowed down the tempo and left out the extended intro and so-called breakdown section of the tune.
       
Artist:    Association
Title:    Six Man Band
Source:    LP: Greatest Hits
Writer(s):    Terry Kirkman
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1968
    The Association had a solid two years of hits starting with their 1966 single Along Comes Mary. They did even better with the followup, Cherish, which went all the way to the # 2 spot on the national charts. They hit their peak in 1967 with two top five singles, Windy and Never My Love, and had their last top 40 hit in 1968 with the song Time For Livin'. By this time the band was being criticized for its use of studio musicians rather than the band members themselves, and the Association responded with the song Six Man Band, which was released as a single later the same year. Although the song did not chart, it was included on the group's Greatest Hits album that same year.

Artist:    Country Joe And The Fish
Title:    Death Sound Blues
Source:    LP: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
    I generally use the term "psychedelic" to describe a musical attitude that existed during a particular period of time rather than a specific style of music. On the other hand, the term "acid rock" is better suited for describing music that was composed and/or performed under the influence of certain mind-expanding substances. That said, the first album by Country Joe and the Fish is a classic example of acid rock. I mean, really, is there any other way to describe Death Sound Blues than "the blues on acid"?

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Birthday/Yer Blues
Source:    CD: The Beatles
Writer:    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone (original label: Apple)
Year:    1968
    One of the great ironies of rock history was that the album entitled simply The Beatles was the one that had the fewest songs with all four of the band members playing on them. By 1968 the Beatles were experiencing internal conflicts, and nearly all of John Lennon and Paul McCartney's songs were played by just the two of them, while George Harrison's songs (and Ringo Starr's single contribution as a songwriter) featured an array of some of the UK's top musicians (including guitarist Eric Clapton). The opening tracks of side three of the album are typical of this approach, as Birthday is essentially a McCartney solo piece. Yer Blues, on the other hand, has Lennon singing and playing guitar, with probably McCartney on bass and drums. The first performance of Yer Blues in front of a live audience was in December of 1968 as part of the Rolling Stones Rock And Roll Circus. It was not the Beatles however, that performed the tune. Instead, Yer Blues was played by the Dirty Mac, a jam band consisting of Lennon, Clapton, drummer Mitch Mitchell (of the Jimi Hendrix Experience), and the Stones' Keith Richards on bass. That performance was never seen, other than by the studio audience, until the entire Circus was released on DVD a few years ago (Mick Jagger reportedly had the entire project shelved due to his dissatisfaction with the Stones' performance).

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Baby, You're A Rich Man
Source:    CD: Magical Mystery Tour
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple/Parlophone
Year:    1967
    Baby, You're A Rich Man was one of the last collaborations between John Lennon and Paul McCartney and addresses the Beatles' longtime manager Brian Epstein, although not by name.  Lennon came up with the basic question "how does it feel to be one of the beautiful people?" (a popular term for the young and hip in late 60s London), which became the basis for the song's verses, which were combined with an existing, but unfinished, Paul McCartney chorus (Baby, You're A Rich Man, too). The finished piece was issued as the B side of the Beatles' second single of 1967, All You Need Is Love, and later remixed in stereo and included on the US-only LP version of Magical Mystery Tour.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Tomorrow Never Knows
Source:    CD: Revolver
Writer:    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1966
    A few years ago I started to compile an (admittedly subjective) list of the top psychedelic songs ever recorded. Although I never finished ranking the songs, one of the top contenders for the number one spot was Tomorrow Never Knows. The song is one of the first to use studio techniques such as backwards masking and has been hailed as a studio masterpiece.

Artist:    Sly And The Family Stone
Title:    I Want To Take You Higher
Source:    CD: The Best Of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: Stand and as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Sly Stone
Label:    Priority (original label: Epic)
Year:    1969
    Sylvester Stewart was a major presence on the San Francisco music scene for several years, both as a producer for Autumn Records and as a popular local disc jockey. In 1967 he decided to take it to the next level, using his studio connections to put together Sly And The Family Stone. The band featured a solid lineup of musicians, including Larry Graham, whose growling bass line figures prominently in their 1969 recording of I Want To Take You Higher. The song was originally released as a B side, but after the group blew away the crowd at Woodstock the recording was re-released as a single the following year.

Artist:    West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title:    Until The Poorest People Have Money To Spend
Source:    LP: Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil
Writer(s):    Markley/Harris
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1968
            The final West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band album for Reprise, Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil, is generally considered the group's best album as well, despite the absence of founding member Danny Harris (who would return for their next LP on the Amos label). As always, Bob Markley provided the lyrics for all the band's original songs on the LP, including Until The Poorest People Have Money To Spend, which Shaun Harris wrote the music for. Although the sentiment expressed in the song is a good one, the sincerity of Markley's lyrics is somewhat suspect, according to guitarist Ron Morgan, who said that Markley was notoriously miserly with his own money (of which he had inherited quite a lot).
       
Artist:    Doors
Title:    I Can't See Your Face In My Mind
Source:    LP: Strange Days
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    One of the most haunting Doors ever recorded is I Can't See Your Face In My Mind, from their second 1967 LP, Strange Days. It also ranks among the most sadness-evoking song titles I've ever run across. Such is the power of poetry, I guess. Frankly I'm surprised that the Alzheimer's Association hasn't purchased the rights to the song to use on one of their TV fundraising spots. 

Artist:    Traffic
Title:    Dear Mr. Fantasy
Source:    CD: Smiling Phases (originally released on LP: Heaven Is In Your Mind, aka Mr. Fantasy)
Writer(s):    Winwood/Capaldi/Wood
Label:    Island (original label: United Artists)
Year:    1967
            Steve Winwood is one of those artists that has multiple signature songs, having a career that has spanned decades (so far). Still, if there is any one song that is most  closely associated with the guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist, it's Dear Mr. Fantasy from Traffic's 1967 debut LP Mr. Fantasy. The album was originally released in a modified version in the US in early 1968 under the title Heaven Is In Your Mind, but later editions of the LP, while retaining the US track order and running time, were renamed to match the original British title.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1532 (starts 8/5/15)

Artist:    Yardbirds
Title:    Over Under Sideways Down
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer:    Dreja/Relf/Samwell-Smith/McCarty/Beck
Label:    Epic
Year:    1966
     The only Yardbirds album to feature primarily original material was released under different titles in different parts of the world. The original UK version was called simply The Yardbirds, while the US album bore the Over Under Sideways Down title. In addition, the UK album was unofficially known as Roger the Engineer because of band member Chris Dreja's drawing of the band's recording engineer on the cover. The title cut was the last single to feature Jeff Beck as the band's sole lead guitarist (the follow-up single, Happenings Ten Years Time Ago, featured both Beck and Jimmy Page).

 Artist:    Yardbirds
Title:    Happenings Ten Years Time Ago
Source:    Mono Australian import CD: Over, Under, Sideways, Down (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Dreja/Relf/Page/McCarty/Beck
Label:    Raven (original label: Epic)
Year:    1966
            Following the release of the 1966 LP The Yardbirds (aka Roger The Engineer), bassist Paul Samwell-Smith decided to leave the band to pursue a career as a record producer. The group recruited studio guitar whiz Jimmy Page as his replacement, with Page joining Jeff Beck as co-lead guitarists and Chris Dreja switching from rhythm guitar to bass. The first recording by the new lineup was a single, Happenings Ten Years Time Ago. Dreja, however, was not yet comfortable on bass, so a colleague of Page's, John Paul Jones, was brought in for the sessions, with Dreja playing rhythm guitar. Despite the wealth of talent on the recording, Happenings Ten Years Time Ago was not a major hit, peaking at # 30 on the US charts. It did even worse in the UK, where it only made it to the # 43 spot. Beck and Page would play together on two more Yardbirds recordings before Beck left the group under somewhat mysterious circumstances.

Artist:     Yardbirds
Title:     Jeff's Boogie
Source:     45 RPM single B side
Writer:     Dreja/Relf/Samwell-Smith/McCarty/Beck
Label:     Epic
Year:     1966
     Wrapping up our Yardbirds set we have one of the hottest rock B sides ever issued: Jeff's Boogie, which appeared as the flip side of Over, Under, Sideways Down in 1966 and was included on an LP with the same name (that LP, with a different track lineup and cover, was issued in the UK under the name Yardbirds, although it has since come to be known as Roger The Engineer due to its cover art). Although credited to the entire band, the song is actually based on Chuck Berry's guitar boogie, and features some outstanding guitar work by Jeff Beck.

Artist:    Canned Heat
Title:    Sandy's Blues
Source:    British import CD: Living The Blues
Writer(s):    Bob Hite
Label:    BGO (original US label: Liberty)
Year:    1968
    Generally considered the high point of Canned Heat's career, the 1968 double-LP Living The Blues is best known for the inclusion of Refried Boogie, the centerpiece of the band's live performances. In addition to the 41-minute track, that takes up two entire sides of the album, there were several studio tracks as well, such as Sandy's Blues, a melancholy blues progression written by vocalist Robert (the Bear) Hite.

Artist:    Johnny Winter
Title:    Rollin' And Tumblin'
Source:    LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: The Progressive Blues Experiment)
Writer(s):    McKinley Morganfield
Label:    United Artists (original label: Sonobeat/Imperial)
Year:    1968
    Johnny Winter's first album, The Progressive Blues Experiment, was originally released in 1968 on the Texas-based Sonobeat label. A ctitical success, it was picked up and reissued on the Imperial label a year later. Most of the songs on the album are covers of blues classics such as Muddy Waters's Rollin' And Tumblin'.

Artist:    Quicksilver Messenger Service
Title:    Gold And Silver
Source:    CD: Quicksilver Messenger Service
Writer(s):    Duncan/Schuster
Label:    RockBeat
Year:    1968
    There are differing opinions on just how serious legendary San Francisco singer/songwriter and all-around iconoclast Dino Valenti was being when, at a jam session with guitarist John Cippolina one night, he suggested that the two of them form a band. Since Valenti was busted for drugs the very next day (and ended up spending the next two years in jail), we'll never know for sure. Cippolina, however, was motivated enough to begin finding members for the new band, including bassist David Freiberg (later to join Starship) and drummer Skip Spence. When Marty Balin stole Spence away to join his own new band (Jefferson Airplane), he tried to make up for it by introducing Cippolina to vocalist/guitarist Gary Duncan and drummer Greg Elmore, whose own band, the Brogues, had recently disbanded. Taking the name Quicksilver Messenger Service (so named for all the member's astrological connections with the planet Mercury), the new band soon became a fixture on the San Francisco scene. Inspired by the Blues Project, Cippolina and Duncan quickly established a reputation for their dual guitar improvisational abilities on songs like Gold And Silver. Unlike other San Francisco bands such as the Airplane, Moby Grape and the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service did not jump at their first offer from a major record label, preferring to hold out for the best deal. This meant their debut album did not come out until 1968, missing out on the initial buzz surrounding the summer of love.

Artist:    Simon And Garfunkel
Title:    At The Zoo
Source:    LP: Bookends (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    Simon and Garfunkel did not release any new albums in 1967, instead concentrating on their live performances. They did, however, issue several singles over the course of the year, most of which ended up being included on 1968's Bookends LP. At The Zoo was one of the first of those 1967 singles. It's B side ended up being a hit as well, but by Harper's Bizarre, which took The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy) to the top 10 early in the year.

Artist:     E-Types
Title:     Put The Clock Back On The Wall
Source:     Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:     Bonner/Gordon
Label:     Rhino
Year:     1967
     The E-Types were from Salinas, California, which at the time was known among travelers along US 101 mostly for it's sulfiric smell. As many people from Salinas apparently went to nearby San Jose as often as possible, the E-Types became regulars on the local scene in the latter town, eventually landing a contract with Tower Records and Ed Cobb, who also produced the Standells and the Chocolate Watchband. Since the Standells were already known as a garage-rock band (although they were really a bar band), Cobb tried positioning the Watchband as a psychedelic band (they were really more of a garage band) and the E-Types as a pop-rock band (although they were probably the most psychedelic of the three), hooking them up with the same Bonner/Gordon songwriting team that would soon be receiving fat royalty checks from songs like Happy Together and She's My Girl, both hits for the Turtles.  Put The Clock Back On The Wall was actually titled after a popular phase of the time. After a day or two of losing all awareness of time (and sometimes space), generally due to the influence of certain mind-altering chemicals, it was time to put the clock back on the wall, or get back to reality if you prefer. The song was originally released in early 1967, shortly before Happy Together hit the charts.

Artist:    Janis Ian
Title:    Hair Of Spun Gold
Source:    LP: Janis Ian
Writer(s):    Janis Ian
Label:    Polydor (original label: Verve Forecast)
Year:    1967
    Janis Ian wrote her first song, Hair Of Spun Gold, when she was 12 years old. The piece first appeared in Broadside, a New York based folk publication. Two years later, in 1966, she recorded the song, which was included on her debut LP, which after much shopping around, finally appeared on the Verve Forecast label in 1967.

Artist:    The Band
Title:    The W.S. Wallcott Medicine Show
Source:    LP: Stage Fright
Writer(s):    Robbie Robertson
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1970
    The third album by the Band, Stage Fright, was the first to be produced by the group itself, and was recorded at the Woodstock Playhouse at their home base of Woodstock, NY. The album is considered darker than the group's previous efforts, although tracks such as The W.S. Wallcott Medicine Show lighten things up somewhat. The album was engineered by Todd Rundgren, who after disbanding the Nazz was not yet established as a solo artist. Although Rundgren mixed the album as well, a second mix prepared in the UK by Glyn Johns was chosen for the album's release on Capitol Records (the Rundgren mix has only been issued once, on a special CD reissue of the album on the DCC Compact Classics label in 1994.)
       
Artist:    Please
Title:    Strange Ways
Source:    British similulated stereo CD: Love, Poetry And Revolution
Writer(s):    Peter Dunton
Label:    Grapefruit
Year:    Recorded 1969, released 2013
    Please was a British four-piece band formed in 1968 by Peter Dunton when the band he had recently joined, the Flies, decided to call it quits. Dunton had previously led a band called Please, and his new band was, in essence, a continuation of that original group. Please recorded a handful of tunes, including Strange Ways, in 1969, but before any of these recordings could be issued Dunstan left the group to join the Gurvitz brothers in their band Gun. The remaining members of Please tried to make a go of it under the name Bulldog Breed, but nothing ever came of it.       
Artist:    Tommy James And The Shondells
Title:    Mony Mony
Source:    CD: The Best Of 60s Supergroups (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    James/Gentry/Cordell/Bloom
Label:    Priority (original label: Roulette)
Year:    1968
    Sometime around 1964, a kid named Tommy James took his band, the Shondells, into a recording studio to record a simple song called Hanky Panky. The song was released on the Roulette label and went absolutely nowhere. Two years later a Pittsburgh DJ, looking for something different to make his show stand out from the crowd, decided to dig out a copy of the record and play it as a sort of on-air audition. The audience loved it, and the DJ soon contacted James, inviting him and the Shondells to make a personal appearance. Unfortunately by this time there were no Shondells, so James hastily put together a new band to promote the record. It wasn't long before the word spread and Hanky Panky was a national hit. James and his new Shondells then commenced to pretty much single-handedly keep Roulette Records afloat for the next three or four years with songs like their 1968 jukebox favorite Mony Mony, one of many top 10 singles for the band.

Artist:    Boston Tea Party
Title:    My Daze
Source:    Mono CD: An Overdose Of Heavy Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Travis/Rich/Mike
Label:    Arf! Arf! (original label: Vogue International)
Year:    1967
    Despite the implications of their name, the Boston Tea Party was actually from Burbank, California. The group cut three singles and one album before disbanding. The best of those singles was My Daze, released on the Vogue International label in 1967.

Artist:    Creation
Title:    Biff! Bang! Pow!
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Pickett/Phillips
Label:    Rhino (original label: Planet)
Year:    1966
    The Creation is generally acknowledged as the first major British psychedelic band, predating Pink Floyd by several months. Oddly enough, they are also considered a Mod band in the mold of the Who, thanks in large part to the B side of their second single, released in 1966. Biff! Bang! Pow! had the same sort of driving beat and power chords as many of the songs on the Who's My Generation album, and even included piano work by top session man Nicky Hopkins.

Artist:    Knickerbockers
Title:    Lies
Source:    CD: Nuggets-Classics From the Psychedelic 60s (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Randall/Charles
Label:    Rhino (original label: Challenge)
Year:    1965
    A lot of people thought this was the Beatles recording under a pseudonym when it came out. It wasn't, and I can't help but wonder why anyone would have thought the Beatles had any need to record under a different name and release a song on a second-rate label in the first place. Is it a Richard Bachman kind of thing?

Artist:    Zombies
Title:    She's Not There
Source:    45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
Writer:    Rod Argent
Label:    London (original label: Parrot)
Year:    1964
    Most of the original British invasion bands were guitar-oriented, like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. One notable exception was the Zombies, whose leader, Rod Argent, built the group around his electric piano. Their first single, She's Not There, was a major hit on both sides of the Atlantic and is ranked among the top British rock songs of all time.

Artist:    Who
Title:    Overture From Tommy
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    Decca
Year:    1969
    The Who released their third LP, The Who Sell Out, in December of 1967. For the next year, all that would be heard from the band were a couple of singles and a compilation album (Magic Bus) that the band itself did not approve. Meanwhile, several other bands, including the Beatles, the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Cream, released double LP sets that sold quite well. Little did anyone know that the mysteriously absent Who was in fact working on a project that would make rock history. In early 1969 the Who finally released their own double LP set: the world's first rock-opera, Tommy. That summer the band performed Tommy in its entirety at the Woodstock Performing Arts Festival in upstate New York. The final part of that performance was included in the documentary film and soundtrack album from the festival the following year. The group's US label, Decca, responded by releasing the end portion of the last track on the studio version of Tommy, We're Not Gonna Take It, as a single called See Me Feel Me. For the B side, Decca chose the first four minutes of the Overture that opens the LP, adding the words "From Tommy" for those record buyers who might have been living on another planet for the past year.

Artist:    Grass Roots
Title:    Bella Linda
Source:    CD: Temptation Eyes (originally released on LP: Golden Grass and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Mogul/Battisti/Barri/Gross
Label:    MCA Special Products (original label: Dunhill)
Year:    1968       
            By the 1980s it was common practice for a record label to include one new song on a greatest hits compilation. This practice can be traced back to bands like the Grass Roots, whose Golden Grass LP included a tune called Bella Linda. The song, which incorporates strings arranged by Jimmie Haskell, is generally acknowledged to mark the end of the Roots' psychedelic period, with their later recordings taking on more of an R&B flavor.
       
Artist:    West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title:    Watch Yourself
Source:    CD: Volume 3-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil
Writer:    Robert Yeazel
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    Although the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band usually wrote their own material, they occassionally drew from outside sources. One example is Watch Yourself, written by Robert Yeazel, who would go on to join Sugarloaf in time for their second LP, Spaceship Earth, writing much of the material on that album.

Artist:    Steppenwolf
Title:    Born To Be Wild
Source:    CD: Steppenwolf
Writer(s):    Mars Bonfire
Label:    MCA (original label: Dunhill)
Year:    1968
    Born To Be Wild's status as a counter-cultural anthem was cemented when it was chosen for the soundtrack of the movie Easy Rider. The popularity of both the song and the movie resulted in Steppenwolf becoming the all-time favorite band of bikers all over the world.

Artist:    Country Joe And The Fish
Title:    Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine
Source:    LP: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
    While not as commercially successful as the Jefferson Airplane or as long-lived as the Grateful Dead (there's an oxymoron for ya), Country Joe and the Fish may well be the most accurate musical representation of what the whole Haight-Ashbury scene was about, which is itself ironic, since the band operated out of Berkeley on the other side of the bay. Of all the tracks on their first album, Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine probably got the most airplay on various underground radio stations that were popping up on the FM dial at the time (some of them even legally).

Artist:    Buffalo Springfield
Title:    Rock And Roll Woman
Source:    LP: Homer (soundtrack) (originally released on LP: Buffalo Springfield Again and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Stephen Stills
Label:    Cotillion (original label: Atco)
Year:    1967
    Buffalo Springfield did not sell huge numbers of records (except for the single For What It's Worth). Nor did they pack in the crowds. As a matter of fact, when they played the club across the street from where Love was playing, they barely had any audience at all. Artistically, though, it's a whole 'nother story. During their brief existence Buffalo Springfield launched the careers of no less than four major artists: Neil Young, Richie Furay, Jim Messina and Stephen Stills. They also recorded more than their share of tracks that have held up better than most of what else was being recorded at the time. Case in point: Rock and Roll Woman, a Stephen Stills tune that still sounds fresh well over 40 years after it was recorded.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    My Back Pages
Source:    CD: Younger Than Yesterday
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    One of the items of contention between David Crosby and Roger McGuinn was the latter's insistence on continuing to record covers of Bob Dylan songs when the band members themselves had a wealth of their own material available. Indeed, it was reportedly an argument over whether or not to include Crosby's Triad on the next album that resulted in Crosby being fired from the band in October of 1967. Nonetheless, the last Dylan cover with Crosby still in the band was perhaps their best as well. Although not as big a hit as Mr. Tambourine Man, My Back Pages from the Younger Than Yesterday album did respectably well on the charts, becoming one of the Byrds' last top 40 hits.

Artist:    Standells
Title:    Dirty Water (live version)
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Ed Cobb
Label:    Sundazed
Year:    Recorded 1966, released 2014
    In October of 1966 the Standells were riding high on the strength of their hit single, Dirty Water, when they opened for the Beach Boys at the University of Michigan. Unbeknownst to the band at the time, the entire performance was being professionally recorded by people from Capitol Records, the parent company of Tower Records, whom the Standells recorded for. The recordings remained unreleased for many years; in fact, even the band members themselves were unaware of their existence until around 2000. Finally, in 2014, Sundazed released the live recording of Dirty Water on clear 45 RPM vinyl as part of their Record Store Day promotion. Enjoy!
       
Artist:    Love
Title:    Hey Joe
Source:    Mono LP: Love
Writer(s):    Billy Roberts
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1966
    There are contradictory stories of the origins of the song Hey Joe. Some say it's a traditional folk song, while others have attributed it to various songwriters, including Tim Rose and Dino Valenti (under his birth name Chet Powers). As near as I've been able to determine the song was actually written by an obscure California folk singer named Billy Roberts, who reportedly was performing the song as early as 1958. The song circulated among West Coast musicians over the years and eventually caught the attention of the Byrds' David Crosby. Crosby was unable to convince his bandmates to record the song, although they did include it in their live sets at Ciro's on L.A.'s Sunset Strip. One of the Byrds' roadies, Bryan Maclean, joined up with Arthur Lee's new band, Love, and brought Crosby's version of the song (which had slightly different lyrics than other, more popular versions) with him. In 1966 Love included Hey Joe on their debut album, with Maclean doing the vocals. Meanwhile another L.A. band, the Leaves, recorded their own version of Hey Joe (reportedly using misremembered lyrics acquired from Love's Johnny Echols) in 1965, but had little success with it. In 1966 they recorded a new version of the song, adding screaming fuzz-drenched lead guitar parts by Bobby Arlin, and Hey Joe finally became a national hit. With two other L.A. bands (and Chicago's Shadows Of Knight) having recorded a song that David Crosby had come to regard as his own, the Byrds finally committed their own version of Hey Joe to vinyl in late 1966 on the Fifth Dimension album, but even Crosby eventually admitted that recording the song was a mistake. Up to this point the song had always been recorded at a fast tempo, but two L.A. songwriters, Sean Bonniwell (of the Music Machine) and folk singer Tim Rose, came up with the idea of slowing the song down. Both the Music Machine and Tim Rose versions of the songs were released on albums in 1966. Jimi Hendrix heard the Rose recording and used it as the basis for his own embellished version of the song, which was released as a single in the UK in late 1966 (although it did not come out in the US until the release of the Are You Experienced album in 1967). Yet another variation on the slow version of Hey Joe was released by Cher in early 1967, which seems to have finally killed the song, as I don't know of any major subsequent recordings of the tune (unless you count the Mothers Of Invention's parody of the song, Flower Punk, which appeared on the album We're Only In It For The Money in 1968).

Artist:    Music Machine
Title:    Masculine Intuition
Source:    Mono British import CD: The Ultimate Turn On (originally released on LP: Turn On The Music Machine)
Writer(s):    Sean Bonniwell
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Original Sound)
Year:    1966
    Following the success of Talk Talk, Sean Bonniwell's band, the Music Machine, picked The People In Me, a track from their debut LP, as a followup single. The B side of that single was another track from the album called Masculine Intuition, which, in typical Sean Bonniwell fashion, takes a common concept and turns it inside out. Unfortunately the single itself tanked, thanks in no small part to mismanagement on the part of both Original Sound Records and the band's own manager.
       
Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Love Or Confusion
Source:    Mono LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer:    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Legacy (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    A little-known fact is that the original European version of Are You Experienced, in addition to having a different song lineup, consisted entirely of mono recordings. When Reprise got the rights to release the album in North America, its own engineers created new stereo mixes from the 4-track master tapes. As most of the instrumental tracks had already been mixed down to single tracks, the engineers found themselves doing things like putting the vocals all the way on one side of the mix, with reverb effects and guitar solos occupying the other side and all the instruments dead center. Such is the case with Love Or Confusion, with some really bizarre stereo panning thrown in at the end of the track. In recent years engineer Eddie Kramer has recreated the original mono mix (and track lineup) of the UK edition of Are You Experienced.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Dance The Night Away
Source:    Mono Russian import LP: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s):    Bruce/Brown
Label:    Lilith (original label: Atco)
Year:    1967
    With the album Disraeli Gears, Cream established itself as having a psychedelic side as well as their original blues orientation. Most of the more psychedelic material was from the team of Jack Bruce and Pete Brown, such as Dance the Night Away.

Artist:    Leaves
Title:    Too Many People
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Pons/Rinehart
Label:    Rhino (original label: Mira)
Year:    1965
    The Leaves are a bit unusual in that in a city known for drawing wannabes from across the world, this local band's members were all native L.A.ins. Formed by members of a fraternity at Cal State Northridge, the Leaves had their greatest success when they took over as house band at Ciro's after the Byrds vacated the slot to go on tour. Like many bands of the time, they were given a song to record as a single by their producer (Love Minus Zero) and allowed to write their own B side. In this case that B side was Too Many People, written by bassist Jim Pons and  guitarist Bill Rhinehart. The song ended up getting more airplay on local radio stations than Love Minus Zero, making it their first regional hit. The Leaves had their only national hit the following year with their third attempt at recording the fast version of Hey Joe, the success of which led to their first LP, which included a watered down version of Too Many People. The version heard here is the 1965 original. Eventually Pons would leave the Leaves, hooking up first with the Turtles, then Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention.

Artist:    Remains
Title:    Why Do I Cry
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Barry Tashian
Label:    Rhino (original label: Epic)
Year:    1965
    Predating the "Boss-Town Sound" by two years (and the band Boston by over 10 years), we have the 1965 single Why Do I Cry from Boston garage band the Remains.
       
Artist:    Harbinger Complex
Title:    My Dear And Kind Sir
Source:    British import CD: With Love-A Pot Of Flowers (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Hockstaff/Hoyle
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Brent)
Year:    1966           
    Fremont, California was home to Harbinger Complex, one of several Bay Area bands signed to Bob Shad's Chicago-based Mainstream label. The Complex had already released one single in April of 1966 on the local Amber label when Shad signed them to record four more sides for his Brent label on August 12th. The B side of one of those singles was My Dear And Kind Sir, a song that could be considered a precurser to the country-rock sound pioneered by Buffalo Springfield later that same year.      
    
Artist:    Misunderstood
Title:    I Unseen
Source:    British import CD: Before The Dream Faded (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Nazim Hikmet
Label:    Cherry Red (original label: Fontana)
Year:    Recorded 1966, released 1969
    The Misunderstood were quite possibly Southern California's first true psychedelic band, having been formed in 1963 as a garage band in Riverside. Their move into psychedelia came with the addition of Glenn Ross Campbell on steel guitar in 1965. They soon came to the attention of local DJ John Ravenscroft, an expatriot Britisher who would eventually return to London and become a legend of British radio using the name John Peel. Ravenscroft became a kind of mentor to the band, helping them to get gigs and time at Hollywood's Gold Star studios, where they cut an acetate that remained unreleased for many years. In June of 1966 Ravenscroft suggested the band relocate to London, where their unique sound stood a greater chance of being accepted than in the relatively conservative Riverside area. Not long after their arrival co-founder Greg Treadway was forced to return to the US to serve in the military; his replacement was Britisher Tony Shields. They soon got a deal with Fontana Records and recorded half a dozen songs that summer, releasing their debut single for the label in December of 1966. Shortly after the release of that record lead vocalist Rick Brown became the band's second victim of the Draft, while the remaining members experienced problems with their work visas, and the Misunderstood were no more. In 1969 Fontana released a second single by the band, taken from the summer 1966 sessions; I Unseen was the B side of that single.