https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/439132-pe-2239
It's been probably a year since I received a copy of the Mommyheads CD Age Of Isolation (a rather appropriate name for a work conceived during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic). For one reason after another I never got around until playing anything from it until now, which is a shame, because this is some really good stuff from a band that has been unfairly overlooked by just about everyone for literally decades. The Mommyheads track kicks off an Advanced Psych segment that also includes a piece from Squires of the Subterrain that is also making its Stuck in the Psychedelic Era debut this week. Also on this week's show: artists' sets from the Monkees and the Rolling Stones, and what could well be the longest continuous opening set in Stuck in the Psychedelic Era's history.
Artist: Guess Who
Title: Shakin' All Over
Source: Mono CD: Reelin' and Rockin' Vol. 7 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Johnny Kidd
Label: Happy Days of Rock and Roll (original US label: Scepter)
Year: 1965
The band that would become internationally famous as the Guess Who formed in Winnipeg, Alberta, Canada in 1960. Originally calling themselves the Silvertones, they were by 1962 known as Chad Allan and the Silvertones, then Chad Allan and the Reflections and finally, by 1964, Chad Allan and the Expressions. During those years they had several lineup changes, scoring a few minor hits on the Canadian charts in the process. Finally, in 1965, with a lineup consisting of Chad Allan, Randy Bachman, Bob Ashley, Jim Kale and Dale Peterson, they decided to try a new tactic. Their latest single, Shakin' All Over, was already huge success in Canada, going all the way to the top of the charts, but the band had their eyes on the US market as well. Deliberately circulating a rumor that the record might actually be a British Invasion supergroup recording under a pseudonym, the band's US label, Scepter Records, issued the record with a plain white label credited to "Guess Who?" After the song was comfortably ensconced in the US top 40 (peaking at # 22) Scepter revealed that the band was actually Chad Allan and the Expressions. DJs in the US, however, continued to refer to the band as the Guess Who and within a few months the group adopted the new name. The band continued to chart minor hits in Canada using both Chad Allan and the Expressions and the Guess Who on their record labels, and for a time it looked like Shakin' All Over would be their only US hit. Burton Cummings replaced Bob Ashley in late 1965, sharing the lead vocals with Chad Allan, who left the group in 1966. Finally in 1969, after changing labels the Guess Who returned to the US charts with the album Wheatfield Soul, featuring the single These Eyes, and went on to score a series of hits in the early 70s.
Artist: Animals
Title: Inside Looking Out
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Animalization
Writer: Lomax/Lomax/Burdon/Chandler
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1966
The last Animals single to feature original drummer John Steel, Inside Looking Out (a powerful song about life in prison) was adapted from an actual chain gang chant called Rosie, which was included as part of Alan Lomax's Popular Songbook around 1960 or so. Released as a single in early 1966, the song was later included on the LP Animalization. Three years later Grand Funk Railroad recorded an extended version of Inside Looking Out that became a staple of their live show.
Artist: 13th Floor Elevators
Title: Slip Inside This House
Source: Mono CD: Easter Everywhere
Writer(s): Hall/Erickson
Label: Charly (original US label: International Artists)
Year: 1967
The 13th Floor Elevators returned from their only California tour in time to celebrate Christmas of 1966 in their native Texas. Not long after that things began to fall apart for the band. Much of this can be attributed to bad management, but at least some of the problems were internal in nature. Lead guitarist Stacy Southerland was caught with marijuana in the trunk of his car, thus causing his probation to be revoked, which in turn meant he was not allowed to leave the Lone Star state. This in turn caused the entire rhythm section to head off for San Francisco, leaving Southerland, along with electric juggest Tommy Hall and vocalist Roky Erickson, to find replacement members in time to start work on the band's second album, Easter Everywhere. Despite this, the album itself came out remarkably well, and is now considered a high point of the psychedelic era. Unlike the first 13th Floor Elevators album, Easter Everywhere was designed to be a primarily spiritual work. Nowhere is this more evident than on the album's opening track, the eight-minute epic Slip Inside This House. Written primarily by Hall, Slip Inside This House was intended to "establish the syncretic concepts behind Western and Eastern religions, science and mysticism, and consolidate them into one body of work that would help redefine the divine essence". While whether he succeeded or not is a matter of opinion, the track itself is certainly worth hearing for yourself. Enjoy.
Artist: Cream
Title: White Room (single version)
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Wheels Of Fire)
Writer(s): Bruce/Brown
Label: United Artists (original label: Atco)
Year: 1968
In order to get songs played on top 40 radio, record companies made it a practice to shorten album cuts by cutting out extended instrumental breaks and extra verses. This version of the Cream classic White Room, clocking in at just over three minutes, is a typical example.
Artist: Elephant's Memory
Title: Brief Encounter
Source: CD: Elephant's Memory
Writer(s): Richard Sussman
Label: BMG/Collector's Choice (original label: Buddah)
Year: 1969
One of the hardest-to-describe bands of the late 1960s, Elephant's Memory was formed by singer/saxophonist/flautist/clarinetist Stan Bronstein and drummer Rick Frank, along with bassist/trombonist Myron Yules. One early member of the band was vocalist Carly Simon, although by the time the band recorded their debut LP in 1969 she had been replaced by Michal Shapiro. Filling out the band's 1969 lineup were keyboardist Richard Sussman and guitarists John Ward and Chester Ayres. Shapiro's vocals were particularly well suited to the band's jazzier numbers, such as Brief Encounter, which also incorporates elements of latino music.
Artist: Turtles
Title: We Ain't Gonna Party Anymore
Source: CD: All The Singles (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Howard Kaylan
Label: Manifesto (original label: White Whale)
Year: 1970
By 1970 relations between White Whale Records and the only artists ever to actually make the label any money had deteriorated to the point that White Whale locked the band out of the recording studio that housed all their equipment and recordings for their partially completed sixth LP, Shell Shock. The band finally was able to access their stuff only after promising to record a song called Who Ever Think That I Would Marry Margaret. The band members universally detested the tune, but the shirts at the label insisted it was hit record material. The song, of course, stiffed, but it did have an interesting B side written by lead vocalist Howard Kaylan called We Ain't Gonna Party Anymore. Although the track, originally meant for Shell Shock, is basically an antiwar song, it also served to let White Whale that the group was disbanding, and would be the last new recording by the band to appear on the White Whale label. White Whale responded by issuing a series of old Turtles album tracks as singles, but within a couple years the label itself was history.
Artist: Procol Harum
Title: Simple Sister
Source: LP: Best of Procol Harum (originally released on LP: Broken Barricades)
Writer: Brooker/Reid
Label: A&M
Year: 1971
By 1971 serious creative differences had developed between keyboardist/vocalist Gary Brooker and lead guitarist Robin Trower. At issue was the direction the band was moving in. While Brooker wanted to continue in the progressive/classical direction the band had become known for, Trower wanted a harder-edged sound. Trower's final album as a member of Procol Harum shows the two directions often at odds with each other. One track, though, Simple Sister, managed to merge elements of both Brooker's and Trower's styles, and received a significant amount of airplay on album-oriented FM radio throughout the 1970s.
Artist: Monkees
Title: Pleasant Valley Sunday
Source: CD: Nuggets-Classics From the Psychedelic 60s (originally released on LP: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD.)
Writer: Goffin/King
Label: Rhino
Year: 1967
After making it a point to play their own instruments on their third LP, Headquarters, the Monkees decided to once again use studio musicians for their next album, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD. The difference was that this time the studio musicians would be recording under the supervision of the Monkees themselves rather than Don Kirschner and the array of producers he had lined up for the first two Monkees LPs. The result was an album that many critics consider the group's best effort. The only single released from the album was Pleasant Valley Sunday, a song penned by the husband and wife team of Gerry Goffin and Carole King, and backed by the band's remake of the Tommy Boyce/Bobby Hart song Words, which had been recorded the previous year by the Leaves. Although both songs ended up making the charts, it was Pleasant Valley Sunday that got the most airplay and is considered by many to be Monkees' greatest achievement.
Artist: Monkees
Title: I'm A Believer
Source: CD: The Monkees' Greatest Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: More Of The Monkees)
Writer(s): Neil Diamond
Label: Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year: 1966
If there was ever any such thing as a guaranteed hit record, it was I'm A Believer, a Neil Diamond tune recorded by the Monkees in 1966. Released in November as the Monkees' second single, I'm A Believer hit the #1 spot on the Billboard charts on December 31st, and remained at the top of the charts for all of January and most of February of 1967. It was also included on the album More Of The Monkees, released in January of 1967, as well as being featured on four consecutive episodes of the TV series The Monkees.
Artist: Monkees
Title: Valleri
Source: CD: Nuggets-Classics From The Psychedelic 60s (originally released on LP: The Birds, The Bees, And The Monkees)
Writer(s): Boyce/Hart
Label: Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year: 1968
The last Monkees top 10 single was also Michael Nesmith's least favorite Monkees song. Valleri was a Tommy Boyce/Bobby Hart composition that the group had first recorded for the first season of their TV show in 1966. Apparently nobody was happy with the recording, however, and the song was never issed on vinyl. Two years later the song was re-recorded for the album The Birds, The Bees And The Monkees and subsequently released as a single. The flamenco-style guitar on the intro (and repeated throughout the song) was played by studio guitarist Louie Shelton, after Nesmith refused to participate in the recording.
Artist: Who
Title: Glow Girl
Source: CD: The Who Sell Out (bonus track originally released on LP: Odds And Sods)
Writer(s): Pete Townshend
Label: MCA (original label: Decca)
Year: Recorded 1968, released 1974
Although it was originally recorded in January of 1968, right after the release of The Who Sell Out, Glow Girl sat on the shelf as the band got to work on their 1969 rock opera Tommy. Pete Townshend, who wrote Glow Girl, was not one to abandon song ideas easily, and he adapted the final line of Glow Girl to be one of the opening lines of Tommy itself, changing the word "girl" to "boy". Glow Girl itself was finally released in 1974 on the Odds And Sods album.
Artist: Love
Title: Wonder People (I Do Wonder)
Source: CD: Forever Changes (bonus track)
Writer(s): Arthur Lee
Label: Elektra/Rhino (bonus track)
Year: 1967
It's not entirely clear why Wonder People (I Do Wonder) was left off Love's Forever Changes album when it was first released in 1967. It could have been for space considerations; after a certain point more music on an LP means a loss of audio quality in order to fit it all. Another, more likely, possibility is that the song itself just wasn't dark enough to be a good fit with the rest of Forever Changes. Whatever the reason, the song is now available as a bonus track on the remastered CD version of the album. It's definitely worth a listen.
Artist: Charlatans
Title: Alabama Bound
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70
Writer: trad., arr. The Charlatans
Label: Rhino (original label: Ace/Big Beat)
Year: Recorded 1967, released 1996
Despite being one of the most important bands on the San Francisco scene, the Charlatans did not have much luck in the recording studio. Their first sessions were aborted, the planned LP for Kama Sutra was shelved by the label itself, and the band was overruled in their choice of songs to be released on their first (and only) single issued from the Kama Sutra sessions. In 1967, however, they did manage to get some decent tracks recorded. Unfortunately, those tracks were not released until 1996, and then only in the UK. The centerpiece of the 1967 sessions was this six-and-a-half minute long recording of a traditional tune that is generally considered to be the Charlatans' signature song: Alabama Bound.
Artist: Sam And Dave
Title: Soul Man
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Hayes/Porter
Label: Stax
Year: 1967
There were a lot of talented people involved with the making of Sam And Dave's Soul Man, including guitarist Steve Cropper, bassist Donald "Duck" Dunn, and songwriters Isaac Hayes and Darrell Porter, not to mention the Bar-Kays on horns. Although not considered "psychedelic" itself, it was still one of the anthems of the Summer of Love.
Artist: Mommyheads
Title: Out Of The Cave
Source: CD: Age Of Isolation
Writer(s): Adam Cohen
Label: Mommyhead Music
Year: 2021
The Mommyheads are a New York based band that has been around since the 1980s (taking the decade from 1998 to 2008 off). As of 2021, the year they released Age Of Isolation, the band consisted of drummer Dan Fisherman, bassist Jason McNair, keyboardist (and occasional guitarist) Michael Holt, and multi-instrumentalist Adam Elk, who, under his birth name of Adam Cohen writes most of the band's material, including Out Of The Cave. All members provide vocals.
Artist: Splinter Fish
Title: Mars
Source: LP: Splinter Fish
Writer(s): Chuck Hawley
Label: StreetSound
Year: 1989
One of my favorite bands on the late 80s Albuquerque music scene was Splinter Fish, a group that didn't quite fall naturally into any specific musical genre. They certainly had things in common with many new wave bands, but also touched on world music and even hard rock. One of their most popular tracks was Mars, which itself is hard to define, thanks to many sudden tempo and even stylistic changes, even though the entire track runs less than three minutes in length. Guitarist/vocalist Chuck Hawley now leads his own band, while fem vocalist Deb-O performs with a variety of Albuquerque musicians in several different combos.
Artist: Squires Of The Subterrain
Title: Admiral Albert's Apparition
Source: CD: Pop In A CD
Writer(s): Christopher Zajkowski
Label: Rocket Racket
Year: Recorded 1992, released 1998
Based in Rochester, NY, the Squires Of The Subterrain are (is?) the work of Christopher Zajkowski of Rochester, NY, who has been releasing independent recordings on his own Rocket Racket label for the better part of 20 years. His work has elements of both Brian Wilson's Smile period and the Beatles at their most psychedelic. Admiral Albert's Apparition, recorded on 4-track equipment in 1992, combines the two quite nicely, yet has an original sound all its own.
Artist: Blues Magoos
Title: Tobacco Road
Source: LP: Psychedelic Lollipop
Writer(s): John D. Loudermilk
Label: Mercury
Year: 1966
For years I've been trying to find a DVD copy of a video I saw on YouTube. It was the Blues Magoos, complete with electric suits and smoke generators, performing Tobacco Road on a Bob Hope TV special. The performance itself was a vintage piece of psychedelia, but the true appeal of the video is in Hope's reaction to the band immediately following the song. You can practically hear him thinking "Well, that's one act I'm not taking with me on my next USO tour."
Artist: Del-Vetts
Title: Last Time Around
Source: Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Dennis Dahlquist
Label: Rhino (original label: Dunwich)
Year: 1966
The Del-Vetts were from Chicago's affluent North Shore. Their gimmick was to show up at a high school dance by driving their matching corvettes onto the gymnasium dance floor. Musically, like most garage/punk bands, they were heavily influenced by the British invasion bands. Unlike most garage/punk bands, who favored the Rolling Stones, the Del-Vetts were more into the Jeff Beck incarnation of the Yardbirds. The 'Vetts had a few regional hits from 1965-67, the biggest being this single issued on the Dunwich label, home of fellow Chicago suburbanites the Shadows of Knight. In retrospect, considering the song's subject matter (and overall loudness), Last Time Around may well be the very first death metal rock song ever recorded.
Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: Pledging My Time
Source: Austrian import CD: Blonde On Blonde
Writer(s): Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
The second track from Bob Dylan's Blonde On Blonde album was Pledging My Time, a blues tune that features Robbie Robertson (who had been touring with Dylan) on guitar. The song was one of three tracks recorded in four takes in Nashville on March 8th of 1966. The song was also used as the B side of the album's first single, but was faded out about two-thirds of the way through.
Artist: Temptations
Title: Psychedelic Shack
Source: 45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
Writer: Whitfield/Strong
Label: Motown Yesteryear (original label: Gordy)
Year: 1970
Starting in 1969 the songwriting/production team of Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong began to carve out their own company within a company at Motown, producing a series of recordings with a far more psychedelic feel than anything else coming out of the Motor City's biggest label. The most blatantly obvious example of this is the Temptations tune Psychedelic Shack, which graced the charts in 1970. Whitfield would eventually form his own company, taking another Motown act, the Undisputed Truth, with him, but would not be able to equal the success of the songs he and Strong produced for the Temptations, such as 1972's Papa Was A Rolling Stone.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Chushingura
Source: LP: Crown Of Creation
Writer(s): Spencer Dryden
Label: RCA Victor
Year: 1968
Drummer Spencer Dryden was certainly not the most prolific songwriter in Jefferson Airplane. In fact, in terms of total output he was probably dead last, although bassist Jack Casady is not far ahead of him. However, Dryden's few contributions as a songwriter rank among the band's most innovative work. Chushingura, which closes out side one of the band's fourth LP, Crown Of Creation, is a good example of this innovation. Although the track is less than a minute and a half long, it stands as one of the earliest examples of electronic music on a rock album.
Artist: Tommy James And The Shondells
Title: Crimson And Clover
Source: LP: Crimson And Clover
Writer(s): James/Lucia
Label: Roulette
Year: 1968
Tommy James And The Shondells were one of the most successful singles bands in the world from 1966 through mid-1968, when they took a three month break from recording to go on tour with Hubert Humphrey's presidential campaign. During that time, James and the band came to the realization that the pop music scene was going through some major changes; in fact, the term "pop music" itself was giving way to "rock", just as the former term had supplanted the term "rock 'n' roll" in the late 1950s following the infamous payola scandal of 1959 that had destroyed the career of disc jockey Alan Freed, who had been instrumental in the popularization of rock 'n' roll in the first place. At the same time, albums were becoming more important to a band's success, a fact that was not lost on James. During their hiatus from recording the band worked on a change in style, and a marketing strategy to go with it. One of the first songs they recorded in this new style was Crimson And Clover. In November of 1968, Tommy James brought a rough mix of the song to Chicago's WLS, arguably the world's most listened to radio station at the time, and played it off the air for disc jockey Larry Lujack. Unbeknownst to James, however, Lujack had one of the station's engineers running a second tape deck in record mode, effectively making a bootleg copy of the song. As the story goes, James then left the station and got into a car that had its radio tuned to WLS, which was already playing the bootleg tape of Crimson And Clover. Although Morris Levy, the head of Roulette Records, asked WLS not to play the tape, the overwhelmingly positive response to the song caused him to change his mind and instead insist that a single be pressed using the same rough mix that WLS was playing. Tommy James was finally allowed to record a longer version of Crimson And Clover for the band's new album (also titled Crimson And Clover), but decided to use the already existing tracks and build on them rather than re-record the entire song. Unfortunately, a speed calibration issue between the original and new sections caused the song to change pitch slightly at the transition points. When Roulette reissued the single for the oldies market in the 1980s they used the LP version, complete with pitch variations.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Dandelion
Source: LP: Through The Past, Darkly (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1967
If there was a British equivalent to the Beach Boys' Good Vibrations in terms of time and money spent on a single song, it might be We Love You, a 1967 single released by the Rolling Stones. To go along with the single (with its state-of-the-art production) the band spent a considerable sum making a full-color promotional video, a practice that would not become commonplace until the advent of MTV in the 1980s. Despite all this, US radio stations virtually ignored We Love You, choosing to instead flip the record over and play the B side, a tune called Dandelion. As to why this came about, I suspect that Bill Drake, the man behind the nation's most influential top 40 stations, simply decided that the less elaborately produced Dandelion was better suited to the US market than We Love You and instructed his hand-picked program directors at such stations as WABC, KHJ and WLS to play Dandelion. The copycat nature of top 40 radio being what it is, Dandelion ended up being a moderate hit in the US in the summer of '67.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Hitch Hike
Source: Mono CD: Out of Our Heads
Writer(s): Gaye/Paul/Stevenson
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1965
The Rolling Stones' early albums consisted of about a 50/50 mix of cover tunes and original tunes from the band members, primarily Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Marvin Gaye's Hitch Hike was one of the cover songs on the album Out of Our Heads, the same album that featured the #1 hit of 1965, (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Street Fighting Man
Source: LP: Through The Past, Darkly (originally released on LP: Beggar's Banquet)
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1968
The Rolling Stones were at a low point in their career following their most psychedelic album, Their Satanic Majesties Request, which came out in late 1967. As a response to charges in the rock press that they were no longer relevant the Stones released Jumpin' Jack Flash as a single in early 1968, following it up with the Beggar's Banquet album later in the year. The new album included the band's follow-up single, Street Fighting Man, a song that was almost as anthemic as Jumpin' Jack Flash itself and went a long ways toward insuring that the Rolling Stones would be making music on their own terms for as long as they chose to.
Artist: Downliners Sect
Title: Why Don't You Smile Now
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released on LP: The Rock Sect's In)
Writer(s): Philips/Vance/Reed/Cale
Label: Rhino (original label: Columbia UK)
Year: 1966
The Downliners Sect was one of the more unusual British bands of the mid-sixties, with a penchant for choosing unconventional material to record. Their second LP, for instance, was made up of covers of songs originally recorded by US Country and Western artists. Their third LP, The Rock Sect's In, was (as the title implies) more of a straight rock album than their previous efforts. Still, they managed to find unique material to record, such as Why Don't You Smile Now, a song chosen from a stack of producers' demos from the US. Although nobody seems to know who Philips or Vance were, the Reed and Cale in the songwriting credits were none other than Lou and John, in a pre-Velvet Underground incarnation.
Artist: Traffic
Title: Heaven Is In Your Mind
Source: LP: Best Of Traffic (originally released in US on LP: Heaven Is In Your Mind)
Writer(s): Winwood/Capaldi/Wood
Label: United Artists
Year: 1967
For a time in the mid-1960s recording artists would actually make two mixes of each song on their albums, one in monoraul and one in stereo. Often the monoraul mix would have a brighter sound, as those mixes were usually made with AM radio's technical limitations in mind. In rare cases, the differences would be even more pronounced. Such is the case with Traffic's first LP, Mr. Fantasy. The two versions of Heaven Is In Your Mind differ not only in their mix but in the actual recording, as the mono mix features an entirely different guitar solo than the more familiar stereo mix heard here.
Artist: West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title: A Child's Guide To Good And Evil
Source: CD: Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil
Writer(s): Markley/Harris
Label: Sundazed (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
If there was ever a band that illustrated just how bizarre the late 60s could be, it was the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. Formed at a party (hosted by the ubiquitous Kim Fowley) by the sons of a noted orchestra conductor and a borderline pedophile with lots of money to burn, the band also included a talented but troubled lead guitarist from Denver and a multi-instrumentalist who would go on to become a highly successful record producer. As would be expected with such a disparate group, several members ended up quitting during the band's run; strangely enough, they all ended up returning to the band at one time or another. Their music was just as strange as their story, as the title track of their fourth album, Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil, illustrates vividly. Musically the song is powerful, almost anthemic, creating a mood that is immediately destroyed by a spoken bit (I hesitate to use the term "poetry") by the aforementioned borderline pedophile, Bob Markley, against a backdrop of a more subdued musical bed with background vocals somewhat resembling Gregorian chant. And just what words of wisdom does Markley have to share with us? Let me give you a small sample: "a vampire bat will suck blood from our hands, a dog with rabies will bite us, rats will run up your legs, but nothing will matter." Perhaps the most bizarre aspect of the whole thing is that the piece was created without benefit of drugs, as all the members of the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band (except for lead guitarist Ron Morgan) were notoriously drug-free, itself the exception rather than the rule in late 60s Hollywood. Oddly enough, in spite of this (or maybe because of it), the track is actually quite fun to listen to. Besides, it only lasts two minutes and twenty seconds.
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