Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2017 (starts 4/20/20)

    This time around we have back to back artists' sets from Jefferson Airplane and Donovan, an entire album side from Quicksilver Messenger Service and an upbeat Advanced Psych segment...and that only accounts for about half of the show! For the rest, read on...

Artist:    Seeds
Title:    Pushin' Too Hard
Source:    Mono British import CD: Singles As & Bs (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Sky Saxon
Label:    Big Beat (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year:    1965
    The Seeds' Pushin' Too Hard is generally included on every collection of psychedelic hits ever compiled. And for good reason. The song is an undisputed classic.

Artist:     Blues Project
Title:     Violets Of Dawn (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Source:     LP:Tommy Flanders, Danny Kalb, Steve Katz, Al Kooper, Andy Kuhlberg, Roy Blumenfeld Of The Blues Project (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer:     Eric Anderson
Label:     Verve Forecast
Year:     1966
     Although Columbia decided not to sign the Blues Project, the songs they recorded for the label in late 1965 ended up being released as their first single for Verve in January of 1966. The B side of that single was Violets of Dawn, written by folk singer Eric Anderson. The recording was also included, with fake clapping overdubbed over the end of the song, on the band's debut LP, Live At Cafe Au Go Go, despite the fact that lead vocalist Tommy Flanders had quit the band before the album came out. Speaking of Flanders, he sounds just a bit out of his element here, as he, by all accounts, had a Mick Jagger-like quality about him that was better suited for the band's more energetic material.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Ain't No Tellin'
Source:    CD: Axis: Bold As Love
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    Possibly the closest thing to a traditional R&B style song in JImi Hendrix's repertoire, Ain't No Tellin' was also, at one minute and 47 seconds, one of the shortest tracks ever recorded by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. The tune appeared on the Axis: Bold As Love album in 1967.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    No Expectations
Source:    LP: Beggar's Banquet
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1968
    After the heavy dose of studio effects on Their Satanic Majesties Request, the Rolling Stones took a back-to-basics approach for their next album, Beggar's Banquet, the first to be produced by Jimmy Miller (who had previously worked with Steve Winwood in Traffic and the Spencer Davis Group). No Expectations, the second track on the album, uses minimal instrumentation and places a greater emphasis on Mick Jagger's vocals and Brian Jones's slide guitar work. Sadly, it was to be Jones's last album as a member of the Rolling Stones, as heavy drug use was already taking its toll (and would soon take his life as well).

Artist:    Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band
Title:    Moonlight On Vermont
Source:    CD: Trout Mask Replica
Writer(s):    Don Van Vliet
Label:    Reprise (original label: Straight)
Year:    1969
    After going through three different record labels in less than three years, Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band finally found a comfortable fit with Frank Zappa's Straight Records in 1968. In August of that year the Captain (Don Van Vliet), along with band members Bill Harkleroad and Jeff Cotton on guitar, John French on drums, and Van Vliet's friend Gary Marker (formerly of the Rising Sons) on bass, recorded the first two tracks for what would become the ultimate Captain Beefheart album, Trout Mask Replica. One of those tracks was Moonlight On Vermont, a "swampy blues" tune that is generally considered to be among the finest of Captain Beefheart's recordings.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    White Rabbit
Source:    45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
Writer(s):    Grace Slick
Label:    RCA
Year:    1967
    For many the definitive song of the psychedelic era, White Rabbit, released as a single after getting extensive airplay on "underground" FM stations, was the second (and final) top 10 hit for Jefferson Airplane during the summer of '67. In 1987 RCA released a special stereo reissue of the single on white vinyl to accompany the 2400 Fulton Street box set.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Turn My Life Down
Source:    CD: Volunteers
Writer(s):    Jorma Kaukonen
Label:    BMG/RCA
Year:    1969
    The fifth Jefferson Airplane studio album has a reputation of being their most political album. While that may be true, Volunteers is also the album that most showcases the growing diversity of writing styles among band members. In particular Jorma Kaukonen's contributions, such as Turn My Life Down, serve as a preview of the style that he and Jack Casady would adopt when they formed Hot Tuna the following year.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Plastic Fantastic Lover
Source:    45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
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:    Donovan
Title:    West Indian Lady
Source:    British import CD: The Hurdy Gurdy Man (originally released in US)
Writer(s):    Donovan Leitch
Label:    EMI (original US label: Epic)
Year:    1968
    Released in October of 1968, The Hurdy Gurdy Man is generally considered the most musically diverse of all of Donovan's albums. West Indian Lady, for example, incorporates a calypso beat, similar to the one used on his 1967 single There Is A Mountain.

Artist:    Donovan
Title:    Guinevere
Source:    Mono LP: Sunshine Superman
Writer(s):    Donovan Leitch
Label:    Epic/Sundazed
Year:    1966
    Donovan's Sunshine Superman marked the beginning of a transition for the Scottish singer/songwriter from folk singer with a primarily British fan base to an international star at the forefront of the psychedelic era. One track on the album that shows a bit of both is Guinevere. The basic song is very much in the traditional British vein, with lyrics that deliberately hearken back to Arthurian times. Yet the entire track is colored by the presence of a sitar, a decidedly non-British instrument that was becoming popular among the psychedelic crowd in 1966.

Artist:    Donovan
Title:    The Sun Is A Very Magic Fellow
Source:    British import CD: The Hurdy Gurdy Man
Writer(s):    Donovan Leitch
Label:    EMI (original US label: Epic)
Year:    1968
    In December of 1967 Donovan released an ambitious double-LP box set called A Gift From A Flower To A Garden. Each of the two LPs had its own subtitle; in fact, the two were also released as separate albums in the US. While the first disc, Wear Your Love Like Heaven, continued the general direction toward psychedelic pop that Donovan's music had been taking that year, the second disc, For Little Ones, was acoustic in nature, and had a more childlike quality. His next studio album, The Hurdy Gurdy Man, contained elements of both discs, with songs like The Sun Is A Very Magic Fellow being an example of the latter.

Artist:    Beach Boys
Title:    I Wanna Be Around/Workshop/Vega-Tables
Source:    Mono LP: The Smile Sessions
Writer(s):    Mercer/Wilson/Parks
Label:    Capitol/EMI
Year:    Recorded 1967, released 2011
    Probably the most celebrated unreleased album in history was the Beach Boys' Smile. When recording for the album began in 1966, it was to be Brian Wilson's crowning achievement, as producer, songwriter and performer. The entire project fell apart in early 1967, however, and the much smaller-scale Smiley Smile was released in its place later that year. Still, bits and pieces of the original Smile sessions, long thought to have been destroyed, would occasionally surface over the years, despite Wilson's stated desire to never revisit the project. Finally, in the early 2000s, Wilson himself, working with a new band, recreated the entire Smile album from scratch, releasing it in 2004. Even then there was interest in the original Beach Boys recordings, and finally, in 2011, the surviving tapes were assembled in an approximation of the original Smile album. The Smile Sessions closely parallels Brian Wilson Presents Smile, with only a few differences. One of those is the omission of a short piece called I'm In Great Shape from the beginning of The Smile Sessions' third movement (it appears instead in the middle of the first), leaving the instrumental adaptation of the 1963 Tony Bennett hit I Wanna Be Around (supplemented by the sound-effects laden Workshop) as the movement's opener, which segues into Vega-Tables, a song that was included (in a stripped down form) on Smiley Smile in 1967.

Artist:    Notes From The Underground
Title:    You Don't Love Me
Source:    British import CD: The Berkeley EPs
Writer(s):    Mark Mandrell
Label:    Big Beat
Year:    Recorded 1967, released 1995
    When it comes to describing Berkeley, California, the first word that comes to mind is "alternative." For one thing, Berkeley sits across Oakland Bay from San Francisco, making it a natural alternative to the city itself. This sense of being an alternative extends itself to the local music scene as well. While San Francisco was developing bands like Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service and the Grateful Dead, Berkeley was fostering groups like Country Joe And The Fish and Notes From The Underground. Unlike other Berkeley bands, however, Notes From The Underground stayed away from politics, and were generally less experimental than their contemporaries on the north side of the Bay. The Notes took over the Fish's spot at the place known as the Jabberwock when that band began playing more out-of-town gigs, and eventually followed in Country Joe's footsteps by issuing their own self-titled EP in 1967. In addition to the five songs issued on the EP the group recorded three more songs that remained unreleased until 1995, when they appeared on a British compilation disc called The Berkeley EPs. One of these song is You Don't Love Me, which bears no resemblance to the old Willie Cobbs tune covered by several rock bands in the late 60s and early 70s (including the Allman Brothers Band). This You Don't Love Me was written by guitarist Mark Mandell (no relation to Harvey), who co-founded Notes From The Underground in 1965.

Artist:    ? And The Mysterians
Title:    I Can't Get Enough Of You Baby
Source:    45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer:    Randle/Linzer
Label:    Abkco (original label: Cameo)
Year:    1967
    ? And The Mysterians' 1966 hit 96 Tears was the last song on the legendary Cameo label to hit the top 10 before the label went bankrupt in 1967 (and was bought by Allan Klein, who still reissues old Cameo-Parkway recordings on his Abkco label). Shortly before that bankruptcy was declared, however, the group released Can't Get Enough Of You Baby, which stalled out in the lower reaches of the charts. The song itself, however, finally achieved massive popularity at the end of the century, when a new version of the tune by Smash Mouth went to the top of the charts.

Artist:    Fever Tree
Title:    I Can Beat Your Drum
Source:    Mono British import CD: All Kinds Of Highs (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Scott and Vivian Holtzman
Label:    Big Beat (original US label: Mainstream)
Year:    1967
    Formed in 1966 in Spring Branch, Texas, the Bostwick Vines were already well-established in the Houston area when they, at the suggestion of their managers, the husband and wife team of Scott and Vivian Holtzman, changed their name to Fever Tree. The Holtzman's were highly influential on the Houston music scene, thanks in part to Scott's popular Nowsounds column inthe Houston Post. When Bob Shad came to town looking to sign local bands to his Mainstream label he naturally contacted the Holtzman's who in turn got Fever Tree signed to the label. Their first single for the label, Hey Mister, was released in February of 1967, with I Can Beat Your Drum on the B side. After their second single, Girl, Oh Girl (Don't Push Me) topped the charts on Houston radio stations the group went national and signed with MCA's Uni label, scoring their only national hit with San Francisco Girls (Return Of The Native) in 1968.

Artist:    Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title:    Ball And Chain
Source:    CD: Cheap Thrills
Writer(s):    Willie Mae Thornton
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    1968
    Big Brother And The Holding Company electrified the crowd at the Monterey International Pop Festival in 1967 with their performance of Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton's Ball And Chain. The rest of the world, however, would have to wait until the following year to hear Janis Joplin's version of the old blues tune, when a live performance recorded at Bill Graham's Fillmore Auditorium was included on the LP Cheap Thrills.

Artist:    Creedence Clearwater Revival
Title:    Good Golly Miss Molly
Source:    LP: Bayou Country
Writer(s):    Blackwell/Marascallo
Label:    Fantasy
Year:    1969
    Although the second Creedence Clearwater Revival album, Bayou Country, contained mostly John Fogerty originals, there was one notable cover song on the LP: a version of Good Golly Miss Molly that was rowdy enough to make Little Richard proud.
       
Artist:    Squires Of The Subterrain
Title:    Mrs. Maude
Source:    CD: Pop In A CD
Writer(s):    Chris Zajkowski
Label:    Rocket Racket
Year:    Recorded 1996, released 1998
    Chris Earl was the drummer for Rochester, NY's Salamanders, a popular dance band in the mid-1990s. Before that he had been a member of a group called the Essentials. Throughout all of this he had been quietly indulging his psychedelic side in his basement, recording several songs as the Squires Of The Subterrain and forming his own Rocket Racket label in 1989. While continuing to perform locally with various groups he continued to release underground Squires cassette tapes. Finally, in 1998, he released Pop In A CD, a compilation CD taken from his previous releases. The CD has several outstanding tracks, including 1995's Mrs. Maude. Earl released several more Squires Of The Subterrain CDs over the years, the most recent being Radio Silence, released in 2019 (which I am still waiting for a copy of, if you happen to be reading this, Chris).

Artist:    Mumphries
Title:    Time For A Change
Source:    CD: Thank You, Bonzo
Writer(s):    Stephen R Webb
Label:    WayWard
Year:    1989
    Time For A Change is the opening track from the only Mumphries album, Thank You, Bonzo. Recorded and released in 1989, it is a protest against corporate misbehavior in the 1980s. Unfortunately, such misbehavior seems to have only gotten worse in the ensuing decades.
   
Artist:    Liquid Scene
Title:    The Other Side Of The Sun
Source:    CD: Revolutions
Writer(s):    Becki DiGregario
Label:    Ziglain
Year:    2014
    The Other Side Of The Sun is, put simply, a catchy tune with an infectious guitar riff that nicely sets the stage for Revolutions, the debut album from San Francisco's Liquid Scene. Last time I played something from Revolutions I mistakenly identified it as being released in 2015. Much thanks to producer/engineer Vince Sanchez at VSO Productions for making me aware of this fine CD.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Eight Miles High
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Fifth Dimension)
Writer(s):    Clark/McGuinn/Crosby
Label:    Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1966
    Gene Clark's final contribution to the Byrds was his collaboration with David Crosby and Roger McGuinn, Eight Miles High. Despite a newsletter from the Gavin Report advising stations not to play this "drug song", Eight Miles High managed to hit the top 20 in 1966. The band members themselves claimed that Eight Miles High was not a drug song at all, but was instead referring to the experience of travelling by air. In fact, it was Gene Clark's fear of flying, especially long intercontinental trips, that in part led to his leaving the Byrds.

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

Artist:    Love
Title:    Signed D.C.
Source:    CD: Comes In Colours (originally released on LP: Love)
Writer(s):    Arthur Lee
Label:    Raven (original label: Elektra)
Year:    1966
    One of the most striking tunes on the first Love album is Signed D.C., a slow ballad in the tradition of House of the Rising Sun. The song takes the form of a letter penned by a heroin addict, and the imagery is both stark and disturbing. Although Lee was known to occasionally say otherwise, the song title probably refers to Love's original drummer Don Conka, who left the band before their first recording sessions.

Artist:    Paul Revere And The Raiders
Title:    Kicks
Source:    Simulated stereo CD: The Best Of 60s Supergroups (originally released on 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Mann/Weil
Label:    Priority (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1966
    Kicks was not the first pop song with a strong anti-drug message, but it was the first one to be a major hit, making it to the number four spot on the US charts and hitting number one in Canada. It was also the biggest hit for Paul Revere and the Raiders until Indian Reservation went all the way to the top of the charts five years later.

Artist:    Quicksilver Messenger Service
Title:    Who Do You Love
Source:    LP: Happy Trails
Writer(s):    Elian McDaniel
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1969
    Quick, what was the last rock album released by Capitol using its iconic "rainbow" label before switching over to that horrid light green one that all the early Grand Funk Railroad albums used? If you answered Quicksilver Messenger Service's Happy Trails album, you'd be wrong...but just barely (actually the answer is Gandalf, which was the very next album released after Happy Trails). Happy Trails is dominated by a 25 minute long rendition of Bo Diddley's Who Do You Love recorded live at either the Fillmore East or Fillmore West, or maybe even a combination of both. The performance is divided into continuous sections, each of which is a variation on the song's basic riff as interpreted by (in order), guitarist Gary Duncan, drummer Greg Elmore, guitarist John Cipollina and bassist David Freibereg, although Elmore's segment is more of an audience participation piece. Quicksilver was one of the most popular live acts during the heyday of the late 1960s San Francisco music scene, and this recording demonstrates why.

Artist:    Max Frost And The Troopers
Title:    Paxton Quigley's Had The Course
Source:    CD: Shape Of Things To Come (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Stuart/Clyde
Label:    Captain High (original label: Tower)
Year:    1969
    Although their actual identity was shrouded in mystery, it seems likely that the fictional Max Frost And The Troopers were in reality a band originally known as Mom's Boys and later as the 13th Power. The group, led by Paul Wibier, released at least one single for Mike Curb's Sidewalk label before being drafted to record several songs for the soundtrack of the 1968 film Wild In The Streets, which starred Christopher Jones as Max Frost, the leader of a rock band who gets elected President of the United States. The name 13th Power even appeared on the label of the movie's soundtrack album, but when the song Shape Of Things To Come was released as a single, the band's name had mysteriously changed to Max Frost And The Troopers. This was followed by an album called Shape Of Things To Come that was undoubtedly the work of the same band, as Wibier was credited with writing most of the songs on it. The following year Christopher Jones starred in a film called Three In The Attic, in which he sang a song called Paxton Quigley's Had The Course, written by the folk-pop duo Chad And Jeremy. A single version of the song soon appeared, credited to Max Frost And The Troopers, despite the fact that, in all likelihood, the 13th Power had nothing to do with it. In fact, the single is likely the work of Davie Allan And The Arrows, who did a lot of soundtrack work for Curb, possibly with Jones on vocals.