Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1623 (starts 5-31-16)

Artist:    Shadows Of Knight
Title:    Gloria
Source:    CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Gloria)
Writer(s):    Van Morrison
Label:    Rhino (original label: Dunwich)
Year:    1966
    For some reason I don't quite understand, I never paid much attention to current trends in popular entertainment other than as an outside observer. For example, when everyone else in my generation was tuned into the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show, I was happily watching Car 54 Where Are You on a rival network. The same applies to the radio stations I listened to. KIMN was, by far, Denver's most popular top 40 station, yet I always managed to find myself listening to their rivals: first KDAB (until a flood took them off the air permanently), and then KBTR. For a short time in late 1966, however, KIMN had no rivals (KBTR had switched to an all-news format and KLZ-FM was still spending most of its broadcast day simulcasting the programming of its middle-of-the-road AM station). As a result, I found myself following KIMN's New Year's countdown of the year's top songs, which included a handful of tunes that I had never heard before. The highest ranked of these unfamiliar songs was one that immediately grabbed me: Gloria, as recorded by a Chicago area band called the Shadows Of Knight. It would be years before I even knew that this was actually a cover version of a song that had been released by Van Morrison's band, Them, but that had been banned in most US markets the previous year. All I knew is that it was a cool tune that would be one of the first songs I learned to play when I switched from violin to guitar the follwing summer.

Artist:    Del Shannon
Title:    The House Where Nobody Lives
Source:    British import CD: The Further Adventures Of Charles Westover (bonus track originally released on CD: The Liberty Years)
Writer(s):    Del Shannon
Label:    BGO (original label: EMI)
Year:    Recorded 1966, released 1991
    Del Shannon teamed up with producers Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart for a handful of recordings in 1966. Some of those recordings, including The House Where Nobody Lives, did not get released until a year after Shannon's death, when they appeared on a collection called The Liberty Years. The song is instantly recognizable as a Shannon composition in the vein of Runaway or Hats Off To Larry, yet also shows the influence of the Boyce/Hart production style that would dominate the first Monkees album later in the year.

Artist:    Music Machine
Title:    Masculine Intuition
Source:    CD: Turn On The Music Machine
Writer:    Sean Bonniwell
Label:    Collectables (original label: Original Sound)
Year:    1966
    If you take out the cover songs that Original Sound Records added to the album without the band's knowledge or approval, Turn On The Music Machine has to be considered one of the best LPs of 1966. Not that the covers were badly done, but they were intended to be used for lip synching on a local TV show and were included without the knowledge or approval of the band, and that's never a good thing. Every one of the Sean Bonniwell originals on the other hand, combines strong musical structure and intelligent lyrics with musicianship far surpassing the average garage band. This is especially true in the case of Masculine Intuition, which was also issued as the B side of the band's second single.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Good Times, Bad Times
Source:    Mono LP:More Hot Rocks (Big Hits And Fazed Cookies) (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1964
    It may be hard to imagine now, but the first Rolling Stones US tour was less than a complete success. In order to salvage something positive about the trip abroad, producer Andrew Loog Oldham arranged for the band to book time at Chicago's Chess Records studio, where many of the band's idols had recorded for the past decade. One of the songs from those sessions was Good Times, Bad Times. The song was only the second Jagger/Richards composition to be recorded by the Stones, and the first to be released on 45 RPM vinyl. Since 45s outsold LPs by a factor of at least five to one in 1964, this was an important distinction (and helped the band financially, since royalties were paid out equally to the writers of both sides of singles at the time, regardless of airplay).

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    You've Got To Hied Your Love Away
Source:    CD: Help!
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone
Year:    1965
    Written at home by John Lennon during what he later described as his "Dylan period", You've Got To Hide Your Love Away is featured in the second Beatles movie, Help! The recording uses a sparse arrangement, with Lennon's acoustic guitar and vocals dominating the mix. George Harrison provided additional guitar, while the flute parts were played by John Scott. The song's lyrics (concerning romantic feelings that the protagonist can't express) are sometimes thought to be a veiled reference to the band's manager Brian Epstein, whose homosexuality was known only to a few close friends (times being what they were). Lennon, however, never divulged just what he had in mind. One of the song's most famous lines, "two foot small" was actually an accident. Lennon had written it as the more conventional "two-foot tall", but flubbed the line when he first sang the song to his songwriting partner, Paul McCartney. In my mind I can see the two of them having a good laugh over it and then deciding that "two-foot small" was just too cool not to use.

Artist:    Blues Project
Title:    Wake Me, Shake Me
Source:    CD: The Blues Project Anthology (originally released on LP: Projections)
Writer(s):    Al Kooper
Label:    Polydor (original label: Verve Folkways)
Year:    1966
    After losing their original lead vocalist, Tommy Flanders, in early 1966, the remaining members of the Blues Project decided to concentrate on their improvisational and songwriting skills, splitting vocal duties between them. Rather than trying to rework the same songs they had been performing with Flanders, they instead began to work up new material, including keyboardist Al Kooper's rock and roll arrangement of an old gospel song, Wake Me, Shake Me. It was this arrangement that appeared on the group's next LP, Projections.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    The War Is Over
Source:    LP: After Bathing At Baxters
Writer:    Paul Kantner
Label:    RCA/BMG Heritage
Year:    1967
    Jefferson Airplane's third album, After Bathing At Baxters' had a unique structure. The dozen or so songs were grouped into five suites, three on one side of the album and two on the other. The shortest of these was The War Is Over, which was comprised of two Paul Kantner songs, Martha and Wild Thyme. A short film of Martha, similar to those accompanying the Beatles' Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane earlier in the year, was shown on a Perry Como special in the fall of '67.

Artist:    Merrell Fankhauser And (His Trusty) HMS Bounty
Title:    A Visit With Ayshia
Source:    CD: Things
Writer(s):    Merrell Fankhauser
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Shamley)
Year:    1968
    Merrill Fankhauser first started playing guitar shortly after moving to San Luis Obispo, California in his teens. By 1960 he had become proficient enough to join a local band, the Impacts, as lead guitarist. In 1962 the Impacts got what they thought was a lucky break, but that turned out to be a classic example of people in the music business taking advantage of young, naive musicians. Following a successful gig at a place called the Rose Garden Ballroom they were approached by a guy named Norman Knowles, who played saxophone with a band called the Revels. Knowles convinced the Impacts to record an album's worth of material at Tony Hilder at Hilder's backyard studio in the Hollywood area. The two of them then took the recordings to Bob Keene, who issued them on his own Del-Fi label. It is not known how much money Knowles and Hilder made on the deal, but the Impacts never saw a penny of it, having signed a contract giving the band the grand total of one US dollar. Not long after the incident Fankhauser left the Impacts to move to Lancaster, Calfornia, where he formed a new band, the Exiles, in 1964. The Exiles had some regional success with a song called Can't We Get Along before breaking up, with Fankhauser returning to the coast to form his own band, Merrell and the Xiles. This band had a minor hit with a song called Tomorrow's Girl in 1967, leading to an album issued under the name Fapardokly (a mashup of band members' Fankhauser, Parrish, Dodd and Lee's last names). Fankhauser and Dodd then formed another band called Merrell Fankhauser And (His Trusty) HMS Bounty, which landed a contract with Uni Records (the label that would became MCA), issuing a self-titled album in 1968. This album was even more psychedelic than Farardokly, as can be heard on A Visit With Ayshia. Fankhauser has been involved with several other projects since then, including a band called Mu in the early 1970s and, more recently the Fankhauser Cassidy band with drummer Ed Cassidy from Spirit. His latest project is an MP3 album called Signals From Malibu, released in 2015.
   
Artist:    Jimi Hendrix
Title:    Beginnings
Source:    CD: First Rays Of The New Rising Sun (originally released on LP: War Heroes)
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:    Recorded 1970, released 1972
    Throughout 1970, whenever Jimi Hendrix, Mitch Mitchell and Billy Cox would find themselves stuck in a rut trying to work out ideas in the recording studio they would break into a jam based on a musical pattern they called Beginnings just to relax. Hendrix had been developing the tune since his days at his Shokan, NY summer retreat the previous year and had performed it, under the title Jam Back At The House, at Woodstock. This particular version of Beginnings was recorded on July 1, 1970, with a new lead guitar overdub added a couple months later. The finished track was first issued as a flexible insert in a 1971 issue of Guitar Player magazine and later included on the 1972 album War Heroes. 

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix
Title:    South Saturn Delta
Source:    CD: South Saturn Delta
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA
Year:    Recorded 1968, released 1997
    Recorded during the 1968 sessions for the Electric Ladyland, South Saturn Delta mixes rock, jazz, and funk in a way that had never been tried before. The Jimi Hendrix Experience had first tried to work out the tune during sessions for the 1967 Axis: Bold As Love, but had never arrived at a final version of the song. Hendrix revived the concept at New York's Record Plant during a jam session on May 2, 1968, with overdubs (including horns) added the following month. Instead of his usual Fender Stratocaster, Hendrix used a Les Paul Junior guitar fed through a Fender amp for the overdub session.

Artist:     Jimi Hendrix
Title:     In From The Storm
Source:     CD: First Rays Of The New Rising Sun (originally released on LP: The Cry Of Love)
Writer:     Jimi Hendrix
Label:     MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:     1970
     Although nobody knows for sure what the final track lineup would have been for Jimi Hendrix's first studio album since 1968's Electric Ladyland, most everyone associated with him agrees that it would have been a double LP and that In From The Storm would have been included on it. The song was first released on The Cry Of Love, the first posthumus Hendrix album, and subsequently was included on Voodoo Soup, Alan Douglas's first attempt at recreating that legendary fourth album. The song also appears on First Rays Of The New Rising Sun, the CD that has replaced Voodoo Soup in the Hendrix catalog. The recording features Hendrix on guitar, Mitch Mitchell on drums and Hendrix's old army buddy Billy Cox on bass.

Artist:     Procol Harum
Title:     Magdalene (My Regal Zonophone)
Source:     CD: Shine On Brightly
Writer:     Brooker/Reid
Label:     A&M
Year:     1968
      The last 16 months (more or less) I lived in Germany my family was given use of a basement room in the apartment building we lived in on Ramstein Air force Base. Such rooms were known as "maid's rooms," and ours became my bedroom, giving me a degree of privacy and freedom unknown to most 16-year-olds. I had one of those record players that would shut itself off when it got to the end of the record and I would always put an album on, turn off the light and let the music lull me into dreamland. My favorite album at that time was Procol Harum's Shine On Brightly, and I would usually put on side two of the LP, which opens with Magdalene (My Regal Zonophone). At the time I didn't realize that the song title was a reference to the British record label Procol Harum recorded for, Regal Zonophone, since my copy was released in Germany on the Polydor label. I still have that copy, although it is far too thrashed to play over the radio.

Artist:    Steve Miller Band
Title:    Lucky Man/Gangster Of Love/ You're So Fine
Source:    CD: Sailor
Writer(s):    Peterman/Watson/Reed
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1968
    The Steve Miller Band's second album, Sailor, was the last to feature original members Jim Peterman and Boz Scaggs. The album is less overtly psychedelic than its predecessor, Children Of The Future, instead shifting the focus to more of a blues-rock sound. This can be heard on the medley of tunes heard on side two of the album. Lucky Man is a Peterman original, while Gangster Of Love came from Johnny "Guitar" Watson. The final part of the trilogy was Jimmy Reed's You're So Fine. Miller made an in-song reference to Gangster Of Love a few years later in his hit tune The Joker.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Days
Source:    Mono Canadian import CD: 25 Years-The Ultimate Collection (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Ray Davies
Label:    Polygram/PolyTel (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    As the sixties wound down, the Kinks were busy proving that if a band could weather the bad times they would eventually re-emerge even stronger than before. The worst of those times for the band was 1968, when they had trouble scoring hits even on the UK charts where they had always had their greatest success. One of the singles released was Days, which shows a band still transitioning from the straight ahead rock of their early years to the sometimes biting satire that would characterize their later work.

Artist:    Other Half
Title:    Mr. Pharmacist
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Jeff Nowlen
Label:    Rhino (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year:    1966
    The Other Half was one of the many bands that could be found playing the local L.A. clubs when the infamous Riot On Sunset Strip happened in 1966. They are also the only other band I know of besides the Seeds that recorded for the GNP Crescendo label. The guitar solo is provided by Randy Holden, who would end up replacing Leigh Stephens in Blue Cheer a few years later.

Artist:    Tears For Fears
Title:    Sowing The Seeds Of Love
Source:    British import CD single
Writer(s):    Orzabal/Smith
Label:    Fontana
Year:    1989
    Although generally not considered a psychedelic band, Tears For Fears managed to effectively channel George Martin's Magical Mystery Tour production techniques (e.g. I Am The Walrus) on their most political recording, 1989's Sowing The Seeds Of Love. Written in response to Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Party's winning of a third consecutive term in office in June of 1987, the track reflects Roland Orzabal's working-class sensibilities with lines like "Politician granny with your high ideals, have you no idea how the majority feels?"

Artist:    Squires Of The Subterrain
Title:    Falling Star
Source:    CD: Strawberries On Sunday
Writer(s):    Chris Zajkowski
Label:    Rocket Racket
Year:    2003
    I recently acquired four CDs from Squires Of The Subterrain, also known as Chris Earl of Rochester, NY. I didn't choose to check them out in any particular order, yet have found that I like each one I've heard even more than the one before it, even when they are not chronologically sequential. I'm just lucky that way, I guess. This time around we have Falling Star, a track from the 2003 release Strawberries On Sunday. Good stuff.

Artist:    13th Floor Elevators
Title:    Reverberation
Source:    CD: The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators
Writer(s):    Hall/Sutherland/Erickson
Label:    Collectables (original label: International Artists)
Year:    1966
    From the original liner notes of The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators: "Reverberation is the root of all inability to cope with environment. Doubt causes negative emotions which reverberate and hamper all constructive thought. If a person learns and organizes his knowledge in the right way---with perfect cross-reference---he need not experience doubt or hesitation." Pretty heady stuff for the year that brought us the Monkees.

Artist:    13th Floor Elevators
Title:    You're Gonna Miss Me
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators)
Writer(s):    Roky Erickson
Label:    Rhino (original label: International Artists)
Year:    1966
    If anyplace outside of California has a legitimate claim to being the birthplace of the psychedelic era, it's Austin, Texas. That's mainly due to the presence of the 13th Floor Elevators, a local band led by Roky Erickson that had the audacity to use an electric jug (played by Tommy Hall) onstage. Their debut album was the first to use the word psychedelic in the title (predating the Blues Magoos' Psychedelic Lollipop by mere weeks). Musically, their leanings were more toward garage-rock than acid-rock, at least on their first album (they got rather metaphysical on their follow-up album, Easter Everywhere).

Artist:    13th Floor Elevators
Title:    Fire Engine
Source:    CD: The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators
Writer(s):    Hall/Sutherland/Erickson
Label:    Collectables (original label: International Artists)
Year:    1966
    In the summer of 1971 the band I was in, Sunn, did a cover of Black Sabbath's War Pigs as part of our regular repertoire. For the siren effect at the beginning of the song we used our voices, which always elicited smiles from some of the more perceptive members of the audience. Listening to Fire Engine, from The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators, has the same effect on me, for pretty much the same reason. The main difference is that the Elevators actually did it with the tape rolling, something Sunn never got the opportunity to do.

Artist:    Love
Title:    My Little Red Book
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released on LP: Love)
Writer(s):    Bacharach/David
Label:    Rhino (original label: Elektra)
Year:    1966
    The first rock record ever released by Elektra Records was a single by Love called My Little Red Book. The track itself (which also opens Love's debut LP), is a punked out version of a tune originally recorded by Manfred Mann for the What's New Pussycat movie soundtrack. Needless to say, Love's version was not exactly what Burt Bacharach and Hal David had in mind.

Artist:    Chocolate Watchband
Title:    No Way Out
Source:    Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: No Way Out and as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Ed Cobb
Label:    Rhino
Year:    1967
    The Chocolate Watchband, from the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area (specifically Foothills Junior College in Los Altos Hills), were fairly typical of the South Bay music scene, centered in San Jose. Although they were generally known for lead vocalist Dave Aguilar's ability to channel Mick Jagger with uncanny accuracy (and a propensity for blowing better known acts off the stage), producer Ed Cobb gave them a more psychedelic sound in the studio with the use of studio effects and other enhancements (including adding tracks to their albums that were performed entire by studio musicians). The title track of No Way Out is credited to Cobb, but in reality is a fleshing out of a jam the band had previously recorded, but never released.

Artist:    Allman Brothers Band
Title:    Whipping Post
Source:    LP: At Fillmore East
Writer(s):    Gregg Allman
Label:    Mercury (original label: Capricorn)
Year:    1971
    Rolling Stone magazine once called the Allman Brothers Band's live recording of Whipping Post on the album At Fillmore East "the finest live rock performance ever committed to vinyl." 'nuff said.

Artist:    Elton John
Title:    Love Song
Source:    LP: Tumbleweed Connection
Writer(s):    Lesley Duncan
Label:    Uni
Year:    1970
    One thing that's more rare than an Elton John song that he didn't write himself (usually with Bernie Taupin) is an Elton John appearance on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era. In fact, Love Song, from Tumbleweed Connection is indeed the first Elton John track ever played on the show (and quite possibly the last as well). British singer Lesley Duncan not only wrote Love Song, she also played guitar and shared lead vocals on the track.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1622 (starts 5/25/16)

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    A Song For Jeffrey
Source:    LP: Living In The Past (originally released on LP: This Was)
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    Jethro Tull's second single (and first European hit) was A Song For Jeffrey from their debut LP, This Was. The Jeffrey in the song title is Jeffrey Hammond, who, according to the liner notes, was "one of us, though he doesn't play anything". The notes go on to say he "makes bombs and stuff". In fact, Hammond would replace bassist Glen Cornick a few albums later and remain with the group for several years. The song itself proved popular enough that when the band compiled their first Anthology album, Living In The Past, A Song For Jeffrey was chosen to open the album.

Artist:    Iron Butterfly
Title:    Unconscious Power
Source:    CD: Heavy
Writer(s):    Ingle/Weis/Bushy
Label:    Rhino (original label: Atco)
Year:    1968
    Formed in San Diego, California, in 1966, Iron Butterfly quickly relocated to L.A. and became part of the underground club scene there. In 1967 they signed with the Atco label, recording their first album, Heavy. Before the LP could be released, however, the band split up, prompting Atco to cancel the project, since there was no longer a band called Iron Butterfly to promote the album. Undaunted, keyboardist/vocalist Doug Ingle and drummer Ron Bushy recruited two new members to fill out the lineup, and in 1968 Heavy was finally released. The lead single from the album was a song called Possession, written by Ingle. The B side of that single, Unconscious Power, was based on a riff by original guitarist Danny Weis, with Ingle fleshing out the tune and arranging the piece. The somewhat metaphysical lyrics were provided by Bushy and sung by Ingle.

Artist:    Rainbow Ffolly
Title:    Sun Sing
Source:    CD: Insane Times (originally released on LP: Sallies Fforth)
Writer(s):    Dunsterville
Label:    Zonophone (original label: Parlophone)
Year:    1968
    Some records can only be described as "magical". Such is the case with Sun Sing, from the only Rainbow Ffolly album Sallies Fforth. The album itself is essentially a bunch of demo tapes made by a group of High Wycombe (a city of about 100,000 about 30 miles from London) art students led by the Dunsterville brothers, Jonathan and Richard. The tapes were made at a local studio in Rickmansworth during off hours and are characterized by the unorthodox approach to record-making used by the group. At the suggestion of the studio owners, the group added various jingles and sound effects between the songs (similar to the approach used on The Who Sell Out) and sold the project as a "sound package" to EMI, which issued it on its Parlophone label in 1968.

Artist:    Grass Roots
Title:    Feelings
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on LP: Feelings and as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Coonce/Entner/Fukomoto
Label:    Rhino (original label: Dunhill)
Year:    1968
    In 1968 the Grass Roots decided to assert themselves and take artistic control of their newest album, Feelings, writing most of the material for the album themselves. Unfortunately for the band, the album, as well as its title track single, fared poorly on the charts. From that point on the Grass Roots were firmly under the control of producers/songwriters Steve Barri and P.F. Sloan, cranking out a series of best-selling hits such as I'd Wait A Million Years and Midnight Confessions (neither of which get played on Stuck in the Psychedelic Era, incidentally).

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    No Expectations
Source:    Mono CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released on LP: Beggar's Banquet and as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1968
    The first single to be released from Beggar's Banquet was Street Fighting Man, which was also the first Rolling Stones track to be produced by Jimmy Miller, who had already established a reputation working with Steve Winwood, both with the Spencer Davis Group and Traffic. Brian Jones's slide guitar work on The B side of the single, No Expectations, is sometimes considered his last important contribution to the band.

Artist:    Spencer Davis Group
Title:    Gimme Some Lovin'
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Winwood/Winwood/Davis
Label:    United Artists
Year:    1966
    The movie The Big Chill used Gimme Some Lovin' by the Spencer Davis Group as the backdrop for a touch football game at an informal reunion of former college students from the 60s. From that point on, movie soundtracks became much more than just background music and soundtrack albums started becoming best-sellers. Not entirely coincidentally, 60s-oriented oldies radio stations began to appear in major markets as well. Ironically, most of those stations are now playing 80s oldies.

Artist:    Grateful Dead
Title:    Stealin'
Source:    Mono CD: Birth Of The Dead (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Gus Cannon
Label:    Rhino (original label: Scorpio)
Year:    1966
    The first Grateful Dead record was actually a limited edition single on San Francisco's Scorpio label, released in 1966. The band had already cut a few tracks in 1965 when they were still known as the Warlocks, but none of those had been released. Both sides of the Scorpio single were cover songs featuring Jerry Garcia on vocals. The A side was a Gus Cannon tune called Stealin', which is a fairly good indication of what the band was doing in 1966 (before seeing the Blues Project perform at the Fillmore inspired them to develop their own improvisational skills).

Artist:    Association
Title:    Pandora's Golden Heebie Jeebies
Source:    Mono British import CD: My Mind Goes High (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Renaissance)
Writer(s):    Gary Alexander
Label:    Warner Strategic Marketing (original label: Valiant)
Year:    1966
    Following up on their monster hit Cherish, the Association released their most overtly psychedelic track, Pandora's Golden Heebie Jeebies, in late 1966, in advance of their second LP, Renaissance. The group had wanted to be more involved in the production process, and provided their own instrumental tracks for the tune, written by band member Gary Alexander. Unfortunately for the band, the single barely made the top 40, peaking at # 35, which ultimately led to the band relying more on outside songwriters and studio musicians for their later recordings such as Never My Love and Windy.

Artist:     Eric Burdon and the Animals
Title:     The Twain Shall Meet (side two)
Source:     LP: The Twain Shall Meet
Writer(s):     Burdon/Briggs/Weider/McCulloch/Jenkins
Label:     M-G-M
Year:     1968
     The Twain Shall Meet was the second album from Eric Burdon and the Animals, the new group formed in early 1967 after Eric Burdon changed his mind about embarking on a solo career. Produced by Tom Wilson (who had also produced Bob Dylan's first electric recordings and the Blues Project's Projections album), The Twain Shall Meet was an ambitious work that shows a band often reaching beyond its grasp, despite having its heart in the right place. For the most part, though, side two of the album works fairly well, starting with the anti-war classic Sky Pilot and continuing into the instrumental We Love You Lil. The final section, All Is One, is a unique blend of standard rock instrumentation (guitar, bass, drums, keyboards) combined with strings, horns, sitar, bagpipes, oboe, flute, studio effects, and drone vocals that builds to a frenetic climax, followed by a spoken line by Burdon to end the album.

Artist:    Country Joe And The Fish
Title:    Porpoise Mouth
Source:    LP: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
    The songs on the first Country Joe And The Fish album ranged from silly satire (Super Bird) to downright spacey. One of the spaciest tracks on the album is Porpoise Mouth, both lyrically and musically.

Artist:    Human Expression
Title:    Optical Sound
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Quarles/Foster
Label:    Rhino (original label: Accent)
Year:    1967
    One thing Los Angeles had become known for by the mid-1960s was its urban sprawl. Made possible by one of the world's most extensive regional freeway systems, the city had become surrounded by suburbs on all sides (except for the oceanfront). Many of these suburbs were (and are) in Orange County, home to Anaheim stadium, Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm. The O.C. was also home to the Human Expression, a band that recorded a trio of well-regarded singles for the Accent label. The second of these was Optical Sound. True to its name, the song utilized the latest technology available to achieve a decidedly psychedelic sound.

Artist:    Tol-Puddle Martyrs
Title:    Social Cell
Source:    Mono CD: Tol-Pubble Martyrs (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Peter Rechter
Label:    Secret Deals (original labels: Pacific/Spiral)
Year:    1967
    Over the past six months or so I have been showcasing the 21st century work of an Australian band called Tol-Puddle Martyrs on our Advanced Psych segment. This time around we have a 1967 from the band's original incarnation. Social Cell was originally released as a B side on the Pacific label, until the owner of the Pacific label was informed that there was already a Pacific label operating in Melbourne. At that time the label was hastily changed to Spiral, with the record having the same catalogue number.

Artist:    Squires Of The Subterrain
Title:    Alexander Mannequin
Source:    Mono CD: Feel The Sun
Writer(s):    Christopher Zajkowski
Label:    Rocket Racket
Year:    2008
    Based in Rochester, NY, the Squires Of The Subterrain are (is?) the work of Christopher Earl of Rochester, NY, who has been releasing independent recordings on his own Rocket Racket label for the better part of 20 years. Alexander Mannequin, from the 2008 album Feel The Sun, has a feel similar to the Beatles during their most psychedelic period (think Magical Mystery Tour), yet maintains a strong sense of originality as well.

Artist:    Liquid Scene
Title:    Which Side Of Time Are You On
Source:    CD: Revolutions
Writer(s):    Becki diGregorio
Label:    Ziglain
Year:    2014
    My favorite new band (by a long shot), Liquid Scene was formed by a group of San Francisco Bay area musicians that shared a love of 60s psychedelic music. Led by multi-instrumentalist Becki diGregorio, the band also includes guitarist Tom Ayers, bassist Endre Tarczy (who also provides some keyboard parts) and drummer Trey Sabatelli. Liquid Scene's first album, Revolutions, was released in late 2014. All nine tracks, including Which Side Of Time Are You On, are worth repeated listenings. I'm looking forward to their next effort.
      
Artist:    Leaves
Title:    Hey Joe
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Billy Roberts
Label:    Rhino (original label: Mira)
Year:    1966
    In 1966 there were certain songs you had to know how to play if you had any aspirations of being in a band. Among those were Louie Louie, Gloria and Hey Joe. The Byrds' David Crosby claims to have discovered Hey Joe, but was not able to convince his bandmates to record it before their third album. In the meantime, several other bands had recorded the song, including Love (on their first album) and the Leaves. The version of Hey Joe heard here is actually the third recording the Leaves made of the tune. After the first two versions tanked, guitarist Bobby Arlin, who had recently replaced founding member Bill Rinehart on lead guitar, came up with the idea of adding fuzz guitar to the song. It was the missing element that transformed a rather bland song into a hit record (the only national hit the Leaves would have). As a side note, the Leaves credited Chet Powers (aka Dino Valenti) as the writer of Hey Joe, but California-based folk singer Billy Roberts had copyrighted the song in 1962 and had reportedly been heard playing the tune as early as 1958.

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:    Cream
Title:    White Room
Source:    LP: Wheels Of Fire
Writer(s):    Bruce/Brown
Label:    Atco
Year:    1968
    Although Cream's music was generally heard on progressive rock FM radio, they did have a couple of songs that crossed over onto AM top 40 radio as well. The second of these was White Room, a Jack Bruce/Pete Brown composition that leads off the band's third LP, Wheels Of Fire.


Artist:    Fleetwood Mac
Title:    Before The Beginning
Source:    CD: Then Play On
Writer(s):    Peter Green
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1969
    Fleetwood Mac's third album, Then Play On, was the first Fleetwood Mac album to include guitarist Danny Kirwan, and was the second to feature a guest appearance by keyboardist Christine Perfect, who would eventually marry bassist John McVie and become a full-time member of the band. Perhaps more importantly, however, Then Play On was also the final album to include the band's founder, guitarist Peter Green. Nearly half the songs on the album were written by Green, including the haunting final track, Before The Beginning.

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:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    You Got Me Floatin'
Source:    CD: Axis: Bold As Love
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    The Jimi Hendrix Experience took four-track recording technology to new levels with their second LP, Axis: Bold As Love on songs like You Got Me Floatin'. The track opens with backwards guitar followed by a memorable riff that continues throughout the song. The entire instrumental break also uses backward-masked guitar, making a somewhat simplistic song into a track that bears further listens.

Artist:    Guess Who
Title:    It's My Pride
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in Canada as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Randy Bachman
Label:    Rhino (original label: Quality)
Year:    1967
    The Guess Who were formed in 1962 in Winnipeg, Ontario as Chad Allen and the Reflections, changing their name to Chad Allen and the Expression in 1964. The group recorded a cover of a Johnny Kidd song, Shakin' All Over, in 1965. The record was not released under the band's actual name, however; in a bid to get more airplay for the song, the record was credited to "Guess Who?". This was during the peak of the British Invasion, and the producers hoped that DJs might assume it was some well-known British band and give the record a shot. Of course, such a thing could never happen these days, as commercial radio DJs are not allowed to choose what music to play. The ploy worked so well (the song was a hit in both the US and Canada) that the band decided to keep the name Guess Who, and continued to crank out hit after hit in their native Canada, although they would not hit the US charts again until 1969. In 1966 the group picked up a second vocalist, Burton Cummings, and within a few months founder Allen left the band, leaving Cummings as the group's front man. One of their more popular Canadian hits was It's My Pride, a song written by guitarist Randy Bachman and released as a single in 1967. Bachman would soon team up with Cummings to write a string of hits, including These Eyes and American Woman, before leaving the Guess Who in the early 70s to form his own band, Bachman-Turner Overdrive.

Artist:    Tiffany Shade
Title:    A Quiet Revolution
Source:    Mono British import CD: All Kinds Of Highs (originally released in US on LP: Tiffany Shade)
Writer(s):    Michael Barnes
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Mainstream)
Year:    1967
    From 1967 through 1970 Bob Shad's Mainstream label released over two dozen rock albums. Most of these albums were by bands that were known only to audiences in their own hometowns. Indeed, most of these albums were highly forgettable. This was due in large part to the fact that Shad would book the absolute minimum amount of studio time required to get an LP's worth of material recorded. This generally meant using the first take of every recording, even if the band felt they could do better if they had a little more time. As a result, most late 60s Mainstream LPs ended up on the budget rack not long after their release, and, at least in some cases, even the band members themselves considered the whole thing a waste of time and effort. Such is the case with Cleveland's Tiffany Shade, which consisted of guitarist/lead vocalist Mike Barnes, keyboardist Bob Leonard, drummer Tom Schuster and bassist Robb Murphy. The group's manager recommended the group to Shad, who booked two eight-hour sessions for the band at the Cleveland Recording Company. Fortunately, the band was better prepared than most of the Mainstream bands, and actually turned out a halfway decent album, thanks in large part to Barnes's talent as a songwriter, which can be heard on tunes like A Quiet Revolution.

Artist:    Strawberry Alarm Clock
Title:    Incense And Peppermints
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Carter/Gilbert/Weitz/King
Label:    Rhino (original label: Uni)
Year:    1967
    Incense and Peppermints is one of the iconic songs of the psychedelic era, yet when it was originally released to Los Angeles area radio stations it was intended to be the B side of The Birdman of Alkatrash. Somewhere along the line a DJ flipped the record over and started playing Incense And Peppermints instead. The song caught on and Uni Records (short for Universal, which is now the world's largest record company) picked up the Strawberry Alarm Clock's contract and reissued the record nationally with Incense And Peppermints as the A side.

Artist:    Motions
Title:    Everything (That's Mine)
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released in the Netherlands as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Rob Van Leeuwen
Label:    Rhino (original label: Havok)
Year:    1966
    The Motions were formed in The Hague in 1964 by vocalist Rudy Bennett and guitarist Rob Van Leeuwen, both of which had been members of Ritchie Clark & The Ricochets. They soon became one of Holland's most popular bands, releasing several singles between 1964 and 1967. One of their most celebrated tunes was a B side written by Van Leeuwen called Everything (That's Mine), released in 1966 on the Havok label. While still a member of the Motions, Bennett was able to launch a solo career that same year. In 1967, however, the group was dealt a crippling blow when Van Leeuwen left to form Shocking Blue, which had a huge international hit in 1969 with the song Venus, also written by Van Leeuwen.

Artist:    Penny Arkade
Title:    Swim
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on CD: Not The Freeze)
Writer(s):    Craig Vincent Smith
Label:    Rhino (original label: Sundazed)
Year:    Recorded: 1967; released 2009
    In 1967 Michael Nesmith, realizing that the Monkees had a limited shelf life, decided to produce a local L.A. band, Penny Arkade, led by singer/songwriter Craig Vincent Smith. Nesmith already had several production credits to his name with the Monkees, including a recording of Smith's Salesman on their 4th LP. Swim, like Salesman, has a touch of country about it; indeed, Nesmith himself was one of the earliest proponents of what would come to be called country-rock. In 1967, however, country-rock was still at least a year away and Nesmith was unable to find a label willing to release the record.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me And My Monkey
Source:    LP: The Beatles
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple
Year:    1968
    Sporting the longest title of any Beatles recording, Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me And My Monkey is also one of the hardest-rocking late period Beatle tracks. There are two schools of thought concerning the subject matter of the lyrics. According to Lennon, the song is about himself and Yoko Ono, who was his constant companion during recording sessions for what would come to be known as the "White album". The other, more negative view, is that the one expressed by Paul McCartney that the Monkey was heroin, which both Lennon and Ono were getting into at the time. Since Lennon wrote the song, his version of things is the generally accepted one.

Artist:    Bubble Puppy
Title:    Beginning
Source:    British import CD: A Gathering Of Promises
Writer(s):    Prince/Cox
Label:    Charly (original label: International Artists)
Year:    1969
    The Bubble Puppy came into existence in 1967, when two former members of the legendary Corpus Christie,Texas garage band the Bad Seeds, guitarist Rod Prince and keyboardist/bassist Roy Cox, relocated to San Antonio, recruiting guitarist Todd Potter and drummer Craig Root to form the new band. Success came quickly in the form of the band's very first gig, opening for the Who at the San Antonio Colosseum. After David Fore replaced Root in the band, the group relocated to Austin, where they got a steady gig at the Vulcan Gas Company. By 1968 the Bubble Puppy was traveling all over Texas for gigs, and late in the year got a contract with Houston-based International Artists, a label that had already gained notoriety by signing the 13th Floor Elevators and Red Crayola. After releasing a surprise top 40 hit, Hot Smoke And Sassafras in December of 1968, the band got to work on a full album, A Gathering Of Promises. International Artists failed to get the album, which was full of fine tunes like Beginning, out quickly enough to capitilize of the popularity of Hot Smoke And Sassafras, and further hurt the band's chance of success by refusing to grant licensing rights on the single to Apple Records for European release. By 1970 the band and the label had parted company, with the Bubble Puppy relocating to Los Angeles and changing their name to Demian.

Artist:     Doors
Title:     People Are Strange
Source:     LP: Strange Days (also released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:     The Doors
Label:     Elektra
Year:     1967
     The first single from the second Doors album was People Are Strange. The song quickly dispelled any notion that the Doors might be one-hit wonders and helped establish the band as an international act as opposed to just another band from L.A. The album itself, Strange Days, was a turning point for Elektra Records as well, as it shifted the label's promotional efforts away from their original rock band, Love, to the Doors, who ironically had been recommended to the label by Love's leader, Arthur Lee.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1621 (starts 5/18/16)

Artist:    Lovin' Spoonful
Title:    Alley Oop
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Dallas Frazier
Label:    Sundazed/Kama Sutra
Year:    1965/2011
    The Lovin' Spoonful didn't actually release their version of the old Hollywood Argyles song Alley Oop as a single in 1965. In fact, they didn't release the song at all, even though it was recorded during the same sessions that became their debut LP that year. In 2011 the people at Sundazed decided to create a "single that never was", pairing Alley Oop with the full-length version of Night Owl Blues, a song that had been included on the 1965 debut in edited form. The Spoonful version of Alley Oop has an almost garage-band feel about it, and is perhaps the best indication on vinyl of what the band actually sounded like in their early days as a local fixture on the Greenwich Village scene.

Artist:    Love
Title:    Emotions
Source:    Mono LP: Love
Writer(s):    Lee/Echols
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1966
    Emotions, the last track on side one of the first Love album, sounds like it could have come directly from the soundtrack of one the spaghetti westerns that were popular with moviegoers in the mid-1960s. Probably not coincidentally, the instrumental is also the only Love recording to carry a writing credit for lead guitarist Johnny Echols (with the exception of the 17-minute jam Revelation on their second LP, which is credited to the entire band).

Artist:    Doors
Title:    The Crystal Ship
Source:    CD: The Doors
Writer:    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    Ever feel like you've discovered something really special that nobody else (among your circle of friends at any rate) knows about? At first you kind of want to keep it to yourself, but soon you find yourself compelled to share it with everyone you know. Such was the case when, in the early summer of 1967, I used my weekly allowance to buy copies of a couple of songs I had heard on the American Forces Network (AFN). As usual, it wasn't long before I was flipping the records over to hear what was on the B sides. I liked the first one well enough (a song by Buffalo Springfield called Do I Have To Come Right Out And Say It, the B side of For What It's Worth), but it was the second one, the B side of the Doors' Light My Fire, that really got to me. To this day I consider The Crystal Ship to be one of the finest slow rock songs ever recorded.

Artist:    Steppenwolf
Title:    Magic Carpet Ride
Source:    CD: Steppenwolf the Second
Writer(s):    Moreve/Kay
Label:    MCA (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 60s.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Got To Get You Into My Life
Source:    British import LP: Revolver
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone
Year:    1966
    One of the best known songs on the Beatles' 1966 album Revolver is Paul McCartney's Got To Get You Into My Life. The song was not released as a single until 1976, when it became the last original Beatles song to hit the top 10 (Free As A Bird, a fleshing out of a John Lennon demo recording by the three living members of the band, made the top 10 nearly 20 years later). McCartney later revealed that the song was an ode to pot, saying "'Got to Get You into My Life' was one I wrote when I had first been introduced to pot ... So [it's] really a song about that, it's not to a person." John Lennon called Got to Get You into My Life one of Paul's best songs.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Sunny Afternoon
Source:    Mono LP: Face To Face
Writer:    Ray Davies
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1966
    My family got its first real stereo (a GE console model with a reel-to-reel recorder instead of a turntable) just in time for me to catch the Kinks' Sunny Afternoon at the peak of its popularity. My school had just gone into split sessions and all my classes were over by one o'clock, which gave me the chance to explore the world of top 40 radio for a couple hours every day without the rest of the family telling me to turn it down (or off).

Artist:     Standells
Title:     Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White
Source:     Mono CD: More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:     Ed Cobb
Label:     Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year:     1966
     The Standells were probably the most successful band to record for the Tower label (not counting Pink Floyd, whose first LP was issued, in modified form, on the label after being recorded in England). Besides their big hit Dirty Water, they hit the charts with other tunes such as Why Pick On Me, Try It, and the punk classic Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White. All but Try It were written by producer Ed Cobb, who has to be considered the most prolific punk-rock songwriter of the 60s, having also written some of the Chocolate Watch Band's best stuff as well.

Artist:     Donovan
Title:     Writer In The Sun
Source:     LP: Mellow Yellow
Writer:     Donovan Leitch
Label:     Epic
Year:     1967
     In 1966-67 Donovan's career was almost derailed by a contractual dispute with his UK label, Pye Records. This resulted in two of his albums, Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow, not being issued in the UK. At the time he felt that there was a real chance that he would be forced into retirement by the dispute, and wrote Writer In The Sun as a way of addressing the subject. Ironically his career was going nowhere but up in the US due to him switching from the relatively small Hickory label to industry giant Columbia's subsidiary label Epic Records and scoring top 10 singles with Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow. His success with those records in the US may have been a factor in Pye settling with the singer-songwriter and issuing a British album that combined tracks from the two albums in late 1967.

Artist:    Strawberry Alarm Clock
Title:    Incense And Peppermints (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Source:    Mono CD: Psychedelic Pop
Writer(s):    Carter/Gilbert/Weitz/King
Label:    BMG/RCA/Buddah (original label: Uni)
Year:    1967
    Incense and Peppermints is one of the iconic songs of the psychedelic era, yet when it was originally released to Los Angeles area radio stations it was intended to be the B side of The Birdman of Alkatrash. Somewhere along the line a DJ flipped the record over and started playing Incense And Peppermints instead. The song caught on and Uni Records (short for Universal, which is now the world's largest record company) picked up the Strawberry Alarm Clock's contract and reissued the record nationally with Incense And Peppermints as the A side.

Artist:    David Bowie
Title:    All The Madmen
Source:    CD: The Man Who Sold The World
Writer(s):    David Bowie
Label:    Parlophone (original label: Mercury)
Year:    1970
    Although most critics agree that the so-called "glitter era" of rock music originated with David Bowie's 1972 LP The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, a significant minority argue that it really began with Bowie's third album, The Man Who Sold The World, released in 1970 in the US and in 1971 in the UK. They point out that World was the first Bowie real rock album (the previous two being much more folk oriented), and cite songs such as All The Madmen, as well as the album's title cut, as the prototype for Spiders From Mars. All The Madmen itself is one of several songs on the album that deal with the subject of insanity, taking the view that an insane asylum may in fact be the sanest place to be in modern times. Whenever I hear the song I think of the film One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, which makes a similar statement.

Artist:    Vanilla Fudge
Title:    The Windmills Of Your Mind
Source:    The Complete Atco Singles
Writer(s):    Bergman/Bergman/Legrand
Label:    Real Gone Music/Rhino
Year:    1969
    Vanilla Fudge all but abandoned their early practice of slowing down and psychedelicizing pop tunes after their first LP, but by their fifth album, Rock and Roll, they were at it again, as this revisioning of The Windmills Of Your Mind (a US hit for Dusty Springfield and an even bigger UK hit for Noel Harrison) shows. Although not audible on the recording itself, drummer Carmine Appice later said he liked the melody of the song so much that he was lying on the floor of the studio singing along with Mark Stein as the song was being taped.

Artist:    Monkees
Title:    Swami-Plus Strings, etc.
Source:    LP: Head soundtrack
Writer(s):    Dolenz/Jones/Nesmith/Tork/Thorne, compiled by Jack Nicholson
Label:    Colgems
Year:    1968
    Head was the first and only feature-length film from the Monkees, released in 1968 after the group's weekly TV show left the air. Unlike the TV show, Head was aimed at a more sophisticated audience, but ended up being a commerical failure. In more recent years the movie has taken on more of a cult classic status, thanks in part to the script by a then-unknown Jack Nicholson. The soundtrack album, compiled by Nicholson, features several new songs by the band, with bits of dialogue and sound effects from the film, as well as incidental music from Ken Thorne. All of these can be heard on the final track of the album, Swami-Plus Strings, etc. Not long after Head was released, Peter Tork became the first ex-Monkee, wanting to pursue projects that might be taken a bit more seriously than the "prefab four".

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    3/5 Of A Mile In 10 Seconds
Source:    CD: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer(s):    Marty Balin
Label:    RCA
Year:    1967
    Marty Balin says he came up with the song title 3/5 Of A Mile In 10 Seconds by combining a couple of random phrases from the sports section of a newspaper. 3/5 Of A Mile In 10 Seconds works out to 216 MPH, by the way.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    White Rabbit
Source:    LP: The Worst Of Jefferson Airplane (originally released on LP: Surrealistic Pillow)
Writer:    Grace Slick
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1967
    A few years back a co-worker asked me about what kind of music I played on the show. When I told him the show was called Stuck in the Psychedelic Era he immediately said "Oh, I bet you play White Rabbit a lot, huh?" As a matter of fact, I do, although not as much as some songs.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Plastic Fantastic Lover
Source:    CD: Surrealistic Pillow
Writer(s):    Marty Balin
Label:    RCA
Year:    1967
    Jefferson Airplane scored their first top 10 hit with Somebody To Love, the second single released from the Surrealistic Pillow album. Almost immediately, forward-thinking FM stations began playing other tracks from the album. One of those favored album tracks, Plastic Fantastic Lover, ended up being the B side of the band's follow-up single, White Rabbit. When the Airplane reunited in 1989 and issued their two-disc retrospective, 2400 Fulton Street, they issued a special stereo pressing of the single on white vinyl as a way of promoting the collection.

Artist:    Dino, Desi And Billy
Title:    The Rebel Kind
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Lee Hazlewood
Label:    Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1965
    Dino Martin, Desi Arnaz, Jr. and Billy Hinsche were high school classmates at Hollywood High. Dino's father Dean was one of the most successful artists on Reprise Records, owned by his friend (and fellow rat-packer) Frank Sinatra, making it a snap for the boys to get a contract with the label. The fact that Desi Arnaz, Jr. (the famous "little Ricky" of "I Love Lucy" fame) was already a household name didn't hurt either. The three of them scored big with I'm A Fool in 1965. Subsequent singles such as The Rebel Kind did not do so well, despite the fact that the song was written by Lee Hazlewood, himself a successful country artist. The group finally split up in 1970 when Desi joined the cast of his mother's TV show. Dino went on to have a successful career as an actor and professional tennis player, while Billy Hinsche stayed in the music business, providing backing vocals for such diverse artists as Joan Jett and Elton John and doing session work and touring with the Beach Boys.

Artist:    McFadden's Parachute
Title:    Summerspace
Source:    CD: Psolipsystic Psychedelic Pslyces Of McFadden's Parachute
Writer(s):    Darren Brennessel
Label:    PeterFonda
Year:    1999
    Although the psychedelic era itself officially covers only a few years in the late 1960s, for many the spirit of the era's music lives on. One such person is Darren Brennessel of Rochester, NY, who is the mastermind behind over two dozen McFadden's Parachute albums. Brennessel has been playing professionally since 1989, when he was the drummer for a band called the Purple Flashes, conceiving and recording the first McFadden's Parachute album as a side project. In the years since, in addition to playing multiple instruments on McFadden's Parachute albums then Brennessel has continued to play drums with a variety of bands, including Sky Saxon's Green Forests, which recorded an as-yet unreleased album in 2004. Brennessel has recently sent me a special sampler collection of McFadden's Parachute tracks recorded mostly in the 1990s. One of the earliest tracks on this collection, Summerspace, opens up disc two of this collection, as well as this week's edition of Advanced Psych.

Artist:    Tol-Puddle Martyrs
Title:    The News
Source:    CD: A Celebrated Man
Writer(s):    Peter Rechter
Label:    Secret Deals
Year:    2009
    The original Tolpuddle Martyrs were a group of farmers in the English village of Tolpuddle who had the temerity to try organizing what amounts to a union in the 19th century. For their efforts they found themselves deported to the penal colony now known as Australia. But that doesn't really concern us. What I wanted to talk about was the original Tol-Puddle Martyrs (note the hyphen), the legendary Australian band that evolved from a group called Peter And The Silhouettes. Well, not exactly. What I really wanted to talk about is the current incarnation of the Tol-Puddle Martyrs. Still led by Peter Rechter, the Martyrs have released a series of CDs since 2007 (including a collection of recordings made by the 60s incarnation of the band). Among those CDs is the 2009 album A Celbrated Man, which contains several excellent tunes such as The News, which takes a look at...well, the news, actually. Thanks to Peter Rechter himself, we will be hearing tracks from all the Tol-Puddle Martyrs albums over the next few months and beyond.

Artist:    Shadows Of Knight
Title:    High Blood Pressure
Source:    LP: Back Door Men
Writer(s):    Smith/Vincent
Label:    Sundazed
Year:    1966
    In the mid 1960s it was common practice for albums, especially those from second-tier or regional record labels such as Dunwich, to include several "filler" tracks to go along with whatever hits the album might include. The second album from the Shadows Of Knight, Back Door Men, is no exception. Among these tracks was a remake of a tune from Huey "Piano" Smith and the Clowns called High Blood Pressure, originally released in 1958 on the Ace label. It's pretty easy to imagine the Shadows performing the song at a suburban Chicago high school dance.

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    Outside Chance
Source:    French import CD: Happy Together (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Zevon/Crocker
Label:    Magic (original label: White Whale)
Year:    1966
    The Turtles' Outside Chance is distinctive for several reasons. First, it was the last single released before Happy Together, the song that would become the band's signature song. It was also their first single since It Ain't Me Babe not to hit the charts, which is kind of hard to understand, as it really is a well-crafted record with a catchy hook. Outside Chance is also notable for being co-written by Warren Zevon, making the record's lack of success even more unfathomable.

Artist:    Simon And Garfunkel
Title:    A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Robert MacNamara'd Into Submission)
Source:    CD: Collected Works (originally released on LP: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme)
Writer(s):    Paul Simon
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    Paul Simon's sense of humor is on full display on A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Robert MacNamara'd Into Submission). The song first appeared, with slightly different lyrics on Simon's 1965 LP The Paul Simon Songbook, which was released only in the UK after Simon and Garfunkel had split following the disappointing sales of their first Columbia LP, Wednesday Morning 3AM. When the duo got back together following the surprise success of an electrified version of The Sound Of Silence, the re-recorded the tune, releasing it on their third Columbia LP, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. The song is a deliberate parody/tribute to Bob Dylan, written in a style similar to It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding), and is full of sly references to various well-known personages of the time as well as lesser-known acquaintances of Simon himself.

Artist:    Blue Cheer
Title:    Summertime Blues
Source:    CD: The Best Of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: Vincebus Eruptum)
Writer(s):    Cochrane/Capehart
Label:    Priority (original label: Philips)
Year:    1968
    European electronics giant Philips had its own record label in the 1960s. In the US, the label was distributed by Mercury Records, and was known primarily for a long string of hits by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. In 1968 the label surprised everyone by signing the loudest band in San Francisco, Blue Cheer. Their cover of the 50s Eddie Cochrane hit Summertime Blues was all over both the AM and FM airwaves that summer.

Artist:    Fifty Foot Hose
Title:    Red The Sign Post
Source:    LP: Cauldron
Writer(s):    Roswicki/Blossom
Label:    Limelight
Year:    1968
    Although most of the more avant-garde bands of the psychedelic era were headquarted in New York, there were some exceptions, such as San Francisco's Fifty Foot Hose. The core members of the band were founder and bassist Louis "Cork" Marcheschi, guitarist David Blossom, and his wife, vocalist Nancy Blossom. The group used a lot of unusual instruments, such as theramin, Moog synthesizer and prepared guitar and piano. Probably their most commercial song was Red The Sign Post from the LP Cauldron. After that album the group called it quits, with most of the members joining the cast of Hair. In fact, Nancy Blossom played lead character Sheila in the San Francisco production of the musical.

Artist:    Amboy Dukes
Title:    Dr. Slingshot
Source:    British import CD: Journey To The Center Of The Mind
Writer(s):    Nugent/Farmer
Label:    Mainstream/Repertoire
Year:    1968
    The original idea behind the second Amboy Dukes album was for Ted Nugent to write all the songs on side one of the LP and Steve Farmer to write side two. It didn't quite work out that way, however, as the two guitarists ended up collaborating on three of the album's tracks. One song in particular, Dr. Slingshot (which closes out side one of the LP), is a truly collaborative effort in that the music was written by Nugent, while two different sets of lyrics came from the pen of Farmer. One of those sets is sung by Farmer himself, while the other is sung by keyboardist Andy Solomon, who had only recently joined the Dukes, replacing Rick Lober.

Artist:    James Gang
Title:    Funk #49/Ashtonpark
Source:    CD:  James Gang Rides Again
Writer(s):    Fox/Peters/Walsh
Label:    MCA (original label: ABC)
Year:    1970
                Following the release of their first LP, Yer' Album, the James Gang toured extensively, giving them little time to work up material for their followup album. Nonetheless, they managed to turn out a classic with the 1970 release James Gang Rides Again. The album starts with the song that all three band members agree was already worked out by the time they hit the studio, Funk #49. The song (which is probably the band's best known tune) is followed immediately by Ashtonpark, a short instrumental that picks up where Funk #49 fades out. The track is essentially Joe Walsh, Dale Peters and Jim Fox jamming over an echo effect created by cycling the playback of Walsh's guitar back through the record head of the studio tape recorder.
           
Artist:    Creedence Clearwater Revival
Title:    Down On The Corner
Source:    LP: Willy and the Poor Boys
Writer(s):    John Fogerty
Label:    Fantasy
Year:    1969
    By mid-1969 Creedence Clearwater Revival was one of the hottest acts in the country. Their three most recent singles had all just barely missed hitting the top of the charts, each peaking at the # 2 spot and the just about everyone was looking forward to hearing their next record. That record was the Willy And The Poor Boys album, which included the band's first double A sided single, Down On The Corner and Fortunate Son. Both songs ended up near the top of the charts, peaking at...you guessed it: number two.

Artist:    Procol Harum
Title:    Skip Softly (My Moonbeams)
Source:    CD: Shine On Brightly
Writer(s):    Brooker/Reid
Label:    A&M
Year:    1968
    Procol Harum is not generally thought of as a novelty act. The closest they ever came was this track from the Shine On Brightly album that steals shamelessly from a classical piece I really should know the name of but don't. Even then, Skip Softly (My Moonbeams) ends up being as much a showcase for a then-young Robin Trower's guitar work as anything else.

Artist:    Buffalo Springfield
Title:    Bluebird
Source:    LP: Homer (soundtrack) (originally released on LP: Buffalo Springfield Again)
Writer(s):    Stephen Stills
Label:    Cotillion (original label: Atco)
Year:    1967
    When it comes right down to it Buffalo Springfield has one of the highest ratios of songs recorded to songs played on the radio of any band in history, especially if you only count the two albums worth of material that was released while the band was still active. This is probably because Buffalo Springfield had more raw songwriting talent than just about any two other bands. Although Neil Young was just starting to hit his stride as a songwriter, bandmate Stephen Stills was already at an early peak, as songs like Bluebird clearly demonstrate.

Artist:     Blues Project
Title:     Two Trains Running
Source:     CD: The Blues Project Anthology (originally released on LP: Projections)
Writer:     McKinley Morganfield
Label:     Polydor (original label: Verve Folkways)
Year:     1966
     My first two years as a student at the University of New Mexico were spent living off-campus in a large house shared by five other people (a varying number of which were also students). One day while rummaging through the basement I ran across a couple boxes full of reel-to-reel tapes. As I was the only person living there with a reel-to-reel machine and nobody seemed to know where the tapes had come from, I appropriated them for my own use. Unfortunately, many of the tapes were unlabeled, so all I could do was make a guess as to artists and titles of the music on them. One of those tapes was labelled simply "Love Sculpture". It wasn't until a fortuitous trip to a local thrift store a couple of years later that I realized that the slow version of Two Trains Running on the tape was not Love Sculpture at all, but was in fact the Blues Project, from their Projections album. This slowed down version of the Muddy Waters classic has what is considered to be one of the great accidental moments in recording history. About 2/3 of the way through Two Trains Running, Danny Kalb realized that one of the strings on his guitar had gone out of tune, and managed to retune it on the fly in such a way that it sounded like he had planned the whole thing.


       

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1620 (starts 5/11/16)

Artist:    Cream
Title:    I Feel Free
Source:    LP: Fresh Cream
Writer(s):    Bruce/Brown
Label:    Atco
Year:    1966
    After an unsuccessful debut single (Wrapping Paper), Cream scored a bona-fide hit in the UK with their follow-up, I Feel Free. As was the case with nearly every British single at the time, the song was not included on Fresh Cream, the band's debut LP. In the US, however, singles were commonly given a prominent place on albums, and the US version of Fresh Cream actually opens with I Feel Free. To my knowledge the song, being basically a studio creation, was never performed live.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    I Am Waiting
Source:    British import LP: Aftermath
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1966
    The Aftermath album was a turning point for the Rolling Stones. For one thing, it was their first album recorded entirely in the US, and at a much more leisurely pace than their previous albums. This afforded the band the opportunity to spend more time working on their arrangements before committing songs to tape. It also gave Brian Jones a chance to experiment with instruments not normally associate with rock and roll music, such as sitar, dulcimer, marimbas, and koto. Aftermath was also the first Rolling Stones album made up entirely of songs written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, including the semi-acoustical I Am Waiting.

Artist:    Animals
Title:    Inside Looking Out
Source:    Mono CD: The Best Of Eric Burdon And The Animals (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Animalization)
Writer(s):    Lomax/Lomax/Burdon/Chandler
Label:    Polydor (original label: M-G-M)
Year:    1966
    One of the last songs recorded by the Animals before their first breakup, Inside Looking Out (a powerful song about life in prison) was covered a few years later by Grand Funk Railroad, who made it one of their concert staples. This has always been one of my all-time favorite rock songs.

Artist:    Fat Mattress
Title:    Iredescent Butterfly
Source:    CD: Love, Poetry And Revolution (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Neil Landon
Label:    Grapefruit (original label: Polydor)
Year:    1969
    Fat Mattress was, in a sense, a sort of second (or maybe third) tier supergroup formed by Jimi Hendrix Experience bassist Noel Redding, first as a side project and then as his primary band. Other members included vocalist Neil Landon (Flower Pot Men) and bassist Jim Leverton (Walker Brothers, Cat Stevens), with Redding on guitar. Iredescent Butterfly was a song written by Landon that was recorded at the same time as the band's debut LP but was not released until 1969, when it appeared as a B side.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix/Band Of Gypsys
Title:    Earth Blues
Source:    LP: People, Hell And Angels
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Legacy
Year:    Recorded 1969, released 2013
    1969 was a strange year for Jimi Hendrix. For one thing, the guitarist was rock's highest-paid entertainer that year despite the fact that he did not release any new recordings. This was due, at least in part, to events happening offstage, the most important being a lawsuit filed by the producer of recordings made in 1965 by R&B vocalist Curtis Knight with Hendrix sitting in as a sideman. Hendrix had signed what appeared to be a standard release contract to the effect that he had been paid for the recordings and was not entitled to any royalties from them. The producer, however, claimed that Hendrix was under exclusive contract, and issued the recordings on an LP called Get That Feeling on the Capitol label, with Knight and Hendrix sharing equal billing on the album cover. A deal was worked out that Hendrix would provide Capitol with one album to make the lawsuit go away, consisting of either new studio recordings or a live performance of the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Before this could happen, however, bassist Noel Redding left the band to join a new group called Fat Mattress. Hendrix, meanwhile, began work on several tracks with a variety of backing musicians, including his old Army buddy, bassist Billy Cox, and drummer Buddy Miles, who had already made a guest appearance on the third Experience album, Electric Ladyland. Finally, in December, it was decided that the trio, now calling themselves Band Of Gypsys, would record a series of four live New Year's concerts at the Fillmore East and issue the best performances as a live album. In preparation for the concerts, the group made several studio recordings, including an early version of Earth Blues. Unlike the version heard on the Rainbow Bridge album, this track contains no overdubs.

Artist:    Lighthouse
Title:    A Day In The Life
Source:    LP: Suite Feeling
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1969
    Lighthouse was formed in Toronto in 1968 by vocalist/drummer Skip Prokop (formerly of the Paupers) and keyboardist/arranger Paul Hoffert. The idea was to combine a rock rhythm section with R&B-style horns and classical-style strings. The first move they made was to recruit guitarist Ralph Cole, whom the Paupers had shared a bill with in New York. The three of them then went about recruiting an assortment of friends, studio musicians and members of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, making a demo tape and submitting it to M-G-M records, who immediately offered Lighthouse a contract. The band's manager, however, was able to get a better contract from RCA, and the group set about recording their first album, making their stage debut in Toronto in May of 1969. Among the original 13 members of the band were lead vocalist Vic "Pinky" Davin and saxophonist Howard Shore (who would become the leader of the house band for NBC's Saturday Night Live when that TV show made its debut in 1975). The group managed to record two albums that year: their eponymous debut album and the follow-up Suite Feeling. Both albums were recorded at Toronto's Eastern Sound Studio and released on the RCA Victor label in 1969. Although the group scored a couple of minor hits in their native Canada, they were not able to achieve commercial success in the US, and, after a third LP for RCA, changed labels to GRT, where (after several personnel changes, including lead vocals) they managed to chart two top 40 singles in 1971 and 1972. One of the more notable tracks from their second LP, Suite Feeling, was a cover of the Beatles' A Day In The Life that can best be described as "massive". The track brings the entire 13-piece band into play, with horns and strings featured prominently thoughout.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Baby It's You
Source:    Mono CD: Please Please Me
Writer(s):    Williams/Bacharach/David
Label:    Apple/Parlophone
Year:    1963
    The Beatles, in their early days, performed a lot of cover tunes, such as Baby Its You, which had been a top 10 hit for the Shirelles' in 1961. When it came time for the fab four to record their first LP, producer George Martin simply had the band run through their usual live set in the studio with the tape machine running. Since that live set included Baby It's You, the song made it onto the album. In the US, the song first appeared on the VeeJay label on the LP Introducing...The Beatles and was later included on the Capitol LP The Early Beatles. Interestingly, although the Beatles arrangement of Baby Its You is, from a musical standpoint, a straight cover of the Shirelles version, there is a significant difference in the lyrics in that the Beatles chose to repeat the second verse rather than the first, giving the song a more upbeat ending.

Artist:     Beatles
Title:     In My Life
Source:     CD: Rubber Soul
Writer:     Lennon/McCartney
Label:     Parlophone
Year:     1965
    Rubber Soul was the first Beatles album to be made up entirely of songs written by the band members themselves, mostly John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Lennon's contributions in particular were starting to move away from the typical "young love" songs the band had become famous for. One of the best examples is In My Life, which is a nostalgic look back at Lennon's own past (although put in such a way that it could be universally applied). Despite never being released as a single, In My Life remains one of the most popular songs in the Beatles catalog.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    I Saw Her Standing There
Source:    Mono CD: Please Please Me
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple/Parlophone
Year:    1963
    One of the most popular early Beatles songs, I Saw Her Standing There was originally released as the opening track for the band's first LP, Please Please Me, and was also included on the EP The Beatles (no. 1). In the US, the song was included on the Vee Jay release Introducing...The Beatles. In December of 1963 the tune was chosen as the B side of the Beatles' Capitol debut single, I Want To Hold Your Hand. Even as a B side, the song spent 11 weeks on the charts, peaking at #14. It was also included on the first Capitol Beatles album, Meet The Beatles, in 1964.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Love Me Two Times
Source:    LP: Strange Days
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    Although the second Doors album is sometimes dismissed as being full of tracks that didn't make the cut on the band's debut LP, the fact is that Strange Days contains some of the Doors' best-known tunes. One of those is Love Me Two Times, which was the second single released from the album. The song continues to get heavy airplay on classic rock stations.

Artist:    Easybeats
Title:    Heaven And Hell
Source:    CD: Nuggets-Classics From The Psychedelic 60s (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Vanda/Young
Label:    Rhino (original label: Parlophone)
Year:    1967
    Throughout the mid-60s Australia's most popular band was the Easybeats, often called the Australian Beatles. Although their early material sounded like slightly dated British Invasion music (Australia had a reputation for cultural lag, and besides, half the members were British immigrants), by late 1966 guitarist Harry Vanda (one of the two Dutch immigrant members of the group) had learned enough English to be able to replace vocalist Stevie Wright as George Young's writing partner. The new team was much more adventurous in their compositions than the Wright/Young team had been, and were responsible for the band's first international hit, Friday On My Mind. By then the Easybeats had relocated to England, and continued to produce fine singles such as Heaven And Hell.

Artist:    Spencer Davis Group
Title:    Mr. Second Class
Source:    CD: Love, Poetry And Revolution (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Hardin/Davis
Label:    1967
Year:    Grapefruit (original label: United Artists)
            The Spencer Davis Group managed to survive the departure of their star member, Steve Winwood (and has brother Muff) in 1967, and with new members Eddie Hardin (vocals) and Phil Sawyer (guitar) managed to get a couple more singles on the chart over the next year or so. The last of these was Mr. Second Class, a surprisingly strong composition from Hardin and Davis.
       
Artist:    Birds
Title:    No Good Without You
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):    William Stevenson
Label:    Rhino (original label: Decca)
Year:    1965
    Although they only released four singles from 1964-66 (the third of which being No Good Without You), the Birds were among the better UK bands not to get attention outside of their native land. Formed in 1963, the band was first known as the R&B Bohemians and then the Thunderbirds before shortening their name to the Birds. When the US Byrds came along, the Birds actually tried to sue them for using their name. What the group is probably best known for, however, is launching the career of guitarist Ron Wood, who would later join the Faces and is currently a member of some obscure British rock and roll band.

Artist:    Count Five
Title:    Psychotic Reaction
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Nuggets Vol. 1-The Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ellner/Chaney/Atkinson/Byrne/Michaelski
Label:    Rhino (original label: Double Shot)
Year:    1965
    San Jose, California, had a vibrant teen music scene in the late 60s, despite the fact that the relatively small (at the time) city was overshadowed by San Francisco at the other end of the bay (both cities were then, as now, considered part of the same metropolitan market). One of the more popular bands in town was Count Five, a group of five individuals who chose to dress up like Bela Lugosi's Dracula, capes and all. Musically, they idolized the Yardbirds (Jeff Beck era), and for slightly more than three minutes managed to sound more like their idols than the Yardbirds themselves (who by then had replaced Beck with Jimmy Page).

Artist:    Attic Sound
Title:    Look Straight Through You
Source:    CD: A Heavy Dose Of Lyte Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Rogers
Label:    Arf! Arf! (original label: Pioneer)
Year:    1967
    When it comes to the subject of rare late-60s singles, it doesn't get much more obscure than the band known as the Attic Sound, who released one single, Look Straight Through You, in December of 1967, on the Pioneer label out of Memphis, Tennessee. Unfortunately, nobody seems to know where the group itself hailed from, although there are some collectors in Michigan who claim they were from that state. Another source says they were from Silver Spring, Maryland, although it's hard to imagine how an East Coast band ended up recording for a Memphis label. Regardless, the record has come to be regarded as highly collectable, thanks to a strong hook with lots of reverb.

Artist:    Ultimate Spinach
Title:    Funny Freak Parade
Source:    LP: Ultimate Spinach
Writer(s):    Ian Bruce-Douglas
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1968
    1967 was also the year of the "Boss-Town Sound", a gimmick used to promote several Boston-based bands signed to the M-G-M label (M-G-M having been asleep at the wheel during the recent band-signing frenzy in San Francisco). Derided in the music press as a crass attempt to manipulate record buyers, the ultimate victims of this fraud were the bands themselves, many of which were actually quite talented. One of the best remembered of these bands was Ultimate Spinach, the brainchild of keyboardist Ian Bruce-Douglas, who wrote all the material for the group's first two LPs. Although much of the Spinach material sounds like it could have been written by Country Joe McDonald, there are a few tracks, such as Funny Freak Parade, that have a totally original sound to them. The recording uses a wah-wah effect in a rather unique way (at least I don't recall it being used quite like this elsewhere).

Artist:     Moby Grape
Title:     Omaha
Source:     CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: Moby Grape)
Writer:     Skip Spence
Label:     Rhino (original 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:    Squires Of The Subterrain
Title:    Rain On Snow
Source:    CD: Sandbox
Writer(s):    Christopher Earl
Label:    Rocket Racket
Year:    2012
    What happens when you combine environmentally conscious lyrics with music reminiscent of Brian Wilson's later Beach Boys albums such as Pet Sounds and Smile? In this case it's the 2012 album Sandbox from Squires Of The Subterrain. Based in Rochester, NY, the Squires are (is?) the work of Christopher Earl of Rochester, NY, who has been releasing independent recordings on his own Rocket Racket label for the better part of 20 years. Rain On Snow is one of many listenable tracks on Sandbox. Definitely worth checking out.

Artist:    Brian Wilson
Title:    Song For The Children/Child Is Father Of The Man
Source:    CD: Brian Wilson Presents Smile
Writer(s):    Wilson/Love/Asher
Label:    Nonesuch
Year:    2004
    Rock history is full of stories about albums that were started with the best of intentions, but for one reason or another ended up on the shelf, sometimes indefinitely. Perhaps the most famous of these was the Beach Boys' follow up album to their critically acclaimed Pet Sounds LP. The album was to be called Smile, and the priveledged few who had heard the work in progress all agreed it was to be Brian Wilson's masterpiece, both as writer and producer. However, a series of problems, including internal disputes among the band members and Wilson's own mental state, kept pushing back the album's completion date. Finally the whole thing was scrapped, and a far less ambitious LP called Smiley Smile was hastily recorded in its place. The legend of the original Smile continued to grow over the years, however, with occasional fragments of the original tapes (which had first thought to have been destroyed) surfacing from time to time. Throughout this time Wilson had resisted the urge to reopen the Smile project, but in the early 2000s he began to integrate some of the songs into his live concerts, including a 2001 performance of Heroes And Villains at Radio City Music Hall in New York. This led to members of his current band suggesting that he work up the majority of Smile for new performances as a followup to his Pet Sounds Live concerts. Wilson approved the idea, and with the help of band member Darian Sahanaja in particular began updating the material for the 21st century, eventually reuniting with lyricist Van Dyke Parks to finish the project. The newly completed version of Smile was first performed live in February of 2004; the concert was a critical and commercial success, and Wilson's band continued to perform Smile throughout 2004 and 2005. Beginning in April of 2004 Wilson began work on a studio version of Smile, which required substantial reworking from the stage version. Finally, in September, of 2004, Brian Wilson Presents Smile was released. The completed version of Smile is divided into three sections: Americana, Cycle Of Life, and The Elements. The middle section, Cycle Of Life, is also the shortest, consisting of just four songs. The middle two parts of Cycle Of Life heard on this week's show are Song For The Children and Child Is Father Of The Man, both of which date back to the original 1966 Smile sessions. 

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:    Donovan
Title:    Mellow Yellow
Source:    Mono British import CD: Mellow Yellow
Writer(s):    Donovan Leitch
Label:    EMI (original US label: Epic)
Year:    1966
    Although the Mellow Yellow album came out in early 1967, the title track had been released several months earlier as a followup to Donovan's breakthrough US hit Sunshine Superman. Ironically, during Donovan's period of greatest US success none of his recordings were being released in his native UK, due to his ongoing contract dispute with Pye Records.

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:    Electric Prunes
Title:    Kyrie Eleison/Mardi Gras
Source:    CD: Mass In F Minor
Writer:    David Axelrod
Label:    Collector's Choice/Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    After the commercial disappointment of the Electric Prunes second LP, Underground, producer David Hassinger, who actually owned the rights to the Electric Prunes name, decided to use the band in an experiment. David Axelrod had written a rock-mass and was looking for a band to record it. It soon became apparent, however, that Axelrod's arrangements were beyond the technical skills of the Prunes, and studio musicians were brought in to complete the project. The result was Mass In F Minor, which with its royal purple cover stood out on the record racks but did not sell any better than the previous Prunes LP. Before fading off into obscurity the album was immortalized by having its opening track, Kyrie Eleison, featured in the film Easy Rider and subsequent soundtrack album.

Artist:    Tommy James And The Shondells
Title:    Breakaway
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    James/Vail
Label:    Roulette
Year:    1969
    From a modern perspective it seems obvious that the only thing keeping Roulette Records going in the late 60s was the string of hits on the label by Tommy James and the Shondells. Oddly enough, Tommy James was one of many acts that initially tanked on the label. It was only when a Pittsburgh DJ began playing a two year old copy of Hanky Panky he had rescued from the throwaway pile in 1966 that the band's career took off. By then, however, the original Shondells had long-since disbanded and James found himself suddenly in demand with no band to back him up. He soon found a new group of Shondells and began cranking out an amazing streak of hits, including I Think We're Alone Now, Mony Mony, Crystal Blue Persuasion and Crimson and Clover. By 1969, however, the streak was coming to an end, with Sweet Cherry Wine being one of the group's last top 40 hits. The B side of that record was the decidedly psychedelic Breakaway. James would continue as a solo artist after the Shondells split up, scoring his last hit in 1971 with Draggin' The Line.

Artist:    Led Zeppelin
Title:    Friends/Celebration Day
Source:    CD: Led Zeppelin III
Writer(s):    Page/Plant/Jones
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1970
    Following a year of almost constant touring to promote the first two Led Zeppelin albums, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page decided to take a break in early 1970, moving to a Welsh cottage with no electricity and concentrating on their songwriting skills. The result was an album, Led Zeppelin III, that differed markedly from its predecessors. Many of the songs on the album, such as Friends, were almost entirely acoustical, while others, like Celebration Day, were, if anything, more intense than anything on the band's first two albums. Once much of the material for the new album had been written, Page and Plant were joined by John Bonham and John Paul Jones at a place called Headley Grange, where the band rehearsed the new material, adding a few more songs in the process. The album itself caught the band's fans by surprise, and suffered commercially as a result, but has since come to be regarded as a milestone for the band.

Artist:    ? And The Mysterians
Title:    96 Tears
Source:    45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    The Mysterians
Label:    Abkco (original label: Cameo)
Year:    1966
    Although his birth certificate gives the name Rudy Martinez, the leader of the Mysterians had his name legally changed to "?" several years ago. He asserts that he is actually from the planet Mars and has lived among dinosaurs in a past life. Sometimes I feel like I'm living among dinosaurs in this life, so I guess I can relate a little. The band's only major hit, 96 Tears, has the distinction of being the last top 10 single on the Cameo label before Cameo-Parkway went bankrupt and was bought by Allen Klein, who now operates the company as Abkco.

Artist:    Janis Ian
Title:    Lover Be Kindly
Source:    LP: Janis Ian
Writer(s):    Janis Ian
Label:    Polydor (original label: Verve Forecast)
Year:    1967
    Thirty years before young female singer/songwriters such as Jewel and Alanis Morissette took the music world by storm there was a 15-year-old Janis Ian making music that was largely overlooked at the time, but has come to be regarded as groundbreaking in the years since the release of Ian's first LP in 1967. The album itself was commissioned by Atlantic Records, but after hearing some of Ian's controversial lyrics the shirts at the label decided not to release it. After several more labels rejected the album M-G-M subsidiary Verve decided to release one song from the album, Society's Child, as a single on its experimental Verve Forecast label. Famed conductor Leonard Bernstein featured the song on his prime-time TV special called Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution, which led to the song hitting the top 40 charts, eventually peaking at #14 (although it went all the way to the top of the charts in many key cities). This in turn led to the album being released in early 1967. Among the many outstanding tracks on the LP (as far as I'm concerned EVERY track on the album is outstanding) is a tune called Lover Be Kindly. Showing a mix of influences ranging from folk music to the Beatles, the song has a catchy melody and strong lyrics, quite an accomplishment for a virtually unkown artist who was 14 years old at the time the record was produced.

Artist:    Traffic
Title:    (Roamin' Thro' The Gloamin' With) 40,000 Headmen
Source:    LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released as 45 RPM B side and on LP: Traffic)
Writer(s):    Capaldi/Winwood
Label:    United Artists
Year:    1968
    The second Traffic album saw the band taking in a broader set of influences, including traditional English folk music. (Roamin' Through The Gloamin' With) 40,000 Headmen, originally released as the B side to the Dave Mason tune No Face, No Name, No Number, combines those influences with the Steve Winwood brand of British R&B to create a timeless classic.

Artist:    West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title:    Watch Yourself
Source:    LP: Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil
Writer(s):    Robert Yeazel
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 many of the songs on that album.

Artist:    Monkees
Title:    Porpoise Song
Source:    CD: Greatest Hits (originally released on LP: Head soundtrack)
Writer(s):    Goffin/King
Label:    Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year:    1968
    In 1968 the Monkees, trying desperately to shed a teeny-bopper image, enlisted Jack Nicholson to co-write a feature film that was a 180-degree departure from their recently-cancelled TV show. This made sense, since the original fans of the show were by then already outgrowing the group. Unfortunately, by 1968 the Monkees brand was irrevocably tainted by the fact that the Monkees had not been allowed to play their own instruments on their first two albums. The movie Head itself was the type of film that was best suited to being shown in theaters that specialized in "art" films, but that audience was among the most hostile to the Monkees and the movie bombed. It is now considered a cult classic. Porpoise Song, a Gerry Goffin/Carole King composition used as the theme for Head, was also a departure in style for the Monkees, yet managed to retain a decidedly Monkees sound due to the distinctive lead vocals of Mickey Dolenz.