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.