https://exchange.prx.org/p/610205
Usually it's our companion show, Rockin' in the Days of Confusion, that has a lot of tunes that are newly added to the hermitradio repertoire, but this week it's Stuck in the Psychedelic that brings you no less than eleven "new" tracks (two of which are genuinely new, having been released in February of 2026), plus one slightly altered old favorite to start things off.
Artist: Beach Boys
Title: Good Vibrations
Source: Mono LP: The Smile Sessions (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Wilson/Love
Label: Capitol/EMI
Year: 1966
When The Smile Sessions was released in 2011, it included Good Vibrations, the 1966 single that kicked off the entire Smile project. The 2011 release, however, has a slight alteration. The first part of the song is the original single version, but just before the three minute mark added background vocals come in and that entire section of the song is extended, as is the final fadeout, which also contains some extra instrumentation. The reason for these changes was probably known only to Brian Wilson, and there's no way to ask him about it now.
Artist: Doors
Title: Take It As It Comes
Source: CD: Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mine (originally released on LP: The Doors)
Writer(s): The Doors
Label: Elektra/Rhino
Year: 1967
L.A.'s Whisky-A-Go-Go was the place to be in 1966. Not only were some of the city's hottest bands playing there, but for a while the house band was none other than the Doors, playing songs like Take It As It Comes. One evening in early August Jac Holzman, president of Elektra Records, and producer Paul Rothchild were among those attending the club, having been invited there to hear the Doors by Arthur Lee (who with his band Love was already recording for Elektra). After hearing two sets Holzman signed the group to a contract with the label, making the Doors only the second rock band to record for Elektra (although the Butterfield Blues Band is considered by some to be the first, predating Love by several months). By the end of the month the Doors were in the studio recording songs like Take It As It Comes for their debut LP, which was released in January of 1967.
Artist: Steppenwolf
Title: The Pusher
Source: CD: Easy Rider Soundtrack (originally released on LP: Steppenwolf)
Writer(s): Hoyt Axton
Label: MCA (original label: Dunhill)
Year: 1968
While AM radio was all over Born To Be Wild in 1968 (taking the song all the way to the # 2 spot on the top 40 charts), the edgier FM stations were playing heavier tunes from the debut Steppenwolf album. The most controversial (and thus most popular) of these heavier tunes was Hoyt Axton's The Pusher, with it's repeated use of the line "God damn the Pusher." Axton himself did not record the song until 1971, by which time the song was already burned indelibly in the public consciousness as a Steppenwolf tune.
Artist: Hunger!
Title: Colors
Source: Mono LP: Highs In The Mid Sixties Vol 3: L.A. ‘67 Mondo Hollywood (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Mike Lane
Label: AIP (original label: Public)
Year: 1969
Formed in 1967 in Portland, Oregon, the Outcasts had, within a year, developed a devoted following in the area, eventually winning a local battle of the bands. This success was enough to convince the band members to relocate to Los Angeles, where they soon changed their name to Hunger! The band played various clubs on Sunset Strip such as the Whisky-A-Go-Go and were the opening acts for groups like Steppenwolf and the Doors, eventually getting the oportunity to record three singles and an LP (which, oddly, originally only came out in Europe). The third of those single was Colors, written by band member Mike Lane. By the time their album was released in the US (in a modified version with guitar overdubs provided by the Strawberry Alarm Clock's Ed King), the band was on the verge of breaking up. Lead vocalist Bill (Willy) Daffern would go on to replace Rod Evans as vocalist for Captain Beyond.
Artist: New Colony Six
Title: Close Your Eyes Little Girl
Source: CD: Sunlight (rarities) (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Rice/McBride
Label: Sentar (original label: Mercury)
Year: 1970
One of the Chicago area's most durable bands is New Colony Six. Formed in 1964, the band released over 20 singles and four LPs before temporarily disbanding in 1974. Their early recordings had the sound of a polished garage band. After signing to Mercury Records in 1967 the began to move toward a more soft-rock sound, scoring the biggest hit with Things I'd Like To Say in 1968. Their last single for Mercury, Close Your Eyes, Little Girl, showed a return to a slightly harder-edged sound. The band went through several personnel changes while releasing several more singles for the Sunlight label before signing with MCA for a pair of releases before disbanding. New Colony Six got back together for a reunion show in 1988 and have been performing on a semi-regular basis ever since, including being one of the five bands in the Cornerstones Of Rock concert series in Chicago.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Something
Source: CD: Abbey Road
Writer(s): George Harrison
Label: Apple/Parlophone
Year: 1969
For years, the Beatles' George Harrison had felt that he was not getting the respect he deserved from his bandmates for his songwriting ability. That all changed in 1969 when he introduced them to his latest tune for inclusion on the Abbey Road album. Something impressed everyone who heard it, including John Lennon (who said it was the best song on the album), Paul McCartney (who called it Harrison's best song ever) and even producer George Martin, who made sure the song was released as the A side of the only single from Abbey Road. Commercially, Something was a major success as well, going to the top of the US charts and placing in the top 5 in the UK. Perhaps more tellingly, Something is the second most covered song in the entire Beatles catalog (behind Paul McCartney's Yesterday), with over 150 artists recording the tune over the years.
Artist: Fleetwood Mac
Title: Albatross
Source: European import CD: Pure...Psychedelic Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: English Rose
Writer(s): Peter Green
Label: Sony Music (original US label: Epic)
Year: 1968
Albatross was the third single released by Fleetwood Mac. Released in November of 1968, it hit the #1 spot on the UK Single Chart in January of 1969. The song, which is said to have been inspired by a series of notes in an Eric Clapton guitar solo (but slowed down considerably) had been in the works for some time, but left unfinished until the addition of then 18-year-old guitarist Danny Kirwan to the band, who, unlike the band's second guitarist Jeremy Spencer, was more than willing to help bandleader Peter Green work out the final arrangement. Although Spencer was usually the group's resident slide guitarist (as is seen miming the part on a video clip), Kirwan actually played the slide guitar parts behind Green's lead guitar work, with Mick Fleetwood using mallets rather than drumsticks on the recording. John McVie, of course, played bass on the tune.
Artist: Easybeats
Title: Heaven And Hell
Source: CD: Nuggets-Classics From The Psychedelic 60s (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Vanda/Young
Label: Rhino (original US label: United Artists)
Year: 1967
Throughout the mid-60s Australia's most popular band was a group of immigrants calling themselves the Easybeats. Often referred to as the "Australian Beatles", their early material sounded like slightly dated British Beat music (Australia had a reputation for cultural lag, and besides, half the members were English). By late 1966 guitarist Harry Vanda (one of the two Dutch 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: Rolling Stones
Title: Play With Fire
Source: Mono LP: Out Of Our Heads
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: London
Year: 1965
Generally when one thinks of the Rolling Stones the first thing that comes to mind is down to earth rock and roll songs such as Satisfaction, Jumpin' Jack Flash and Honky Tonk Women. The band has always had a more mellow side, however. In fact, the first Mick Jagger/Keith Richards compositions were of the slower variety, including Heart Of Stone and As Tears Go By. Even after the duo started cranking out faster-paced hits like 19th Nervous Breakdown and The Last Time, they continued to write softer songs such as Play With Fire, which made the charts as a B side in 1965. The lyrics of Play With Fire, with their sneering warning to not mess with the protagonist of the song, helped cement the Stones' image as the bad boys of rock and roll.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: Not Fade Away
Source: Mono CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Hardin/Petty
Label: Abkco (original label: London)
Year: 1964
The Rolling Stones' first top 5 hit in the UK was an updated version of the Buddy Holly B side Not Fade Away. The Stones put a greater emphasis on the Bo Diddley beat than Holly did and ended up with their first charted single in the US as well, establishing the Rolling Stones as the Yang of the British Invasion to the Beatles' Ying. It was a role that fit the top band from the city they call "The Smoke" well.
Artist: Rolling Stones
Title: The Spider And The Fly
Source: Mono CD: Out Of Our Heads
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco
Year: 1965
There were often differences in the track lineup between the US and UK versions of albums in the 1960s. There were two main reasons for this difference. The first was that British albums generally had a longer running time than their American counterparts. The second was that the British tradititionally did not include songs on albums that had been already issued on singles. Such was the case with The Spider And The Fly, which was first released as the B side of (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction. Both songs were on the US version of Out Of Our Heads in July of 1965, but when the British version of the album was released two months later neither song was included.
Artist: Lovin' Spoonful
Title: Daydream
Source: Mono LP: Daydream
Writer(s): John Sebastian
Label: Kama Sutra
Year: 1966
One of the most popular songs of 1966 was Daydream by the Lovin' Spoonful. Like many of the songs on the Hums of the Lovin' Spoonful album, Daydream is a departure from the style of the band's early singles such as Do You Believe In Magic. It's also one of the few songs with whistling in it to hit the number one spot on the charts.
Artist: Saturday's Children
Title: Leave That Baby Alone
Source: Mono CD: Oh Yeah! The Best Of Dunwich Records (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Randy Newman
Label: Sundazed (original label: Dunwich)
Year: 1967
Although two of its three founders were jazz musicians, Chicago's Dunwich Records is best known for its release of singles by the region's most popular teen-oriented dance bands of the time. The first of these, a cover of Van Morrison'sGloria by the suburban Shadows Of Knight, was also the most successful, going into the top 10 on the national charts in 1966. More releases by local Chicago-area bands followed, including three by Saturday's Children, a popular group that patterned itself after the Beatles rather than the Rolling Stones. The third of these was Randy Newman's Leave That Baby Alone, released in May of 1967.
A fourth, a cover of the 1965 Everly Brothers B side Man With Money, remained unreleased until 1971, when it appeared on an album called Early Chicago. By then, Dunwich had ceased to exist as a record label and the LP appeared on the Happy Tiger label instead.
Artist: Deep Purple
Title: Hush
Source: CD: British Beat (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Shades Of Deep Purple)
Writer: Joe South
Label: K-Tel (original label: Tetragrammaton)
Year: 1968
British rockers Deep Purple scored a huge US hit in 1968 with their rocked out cover of Hush, a tune written by Joe South that had been an international hit for Billy Joe Royal the previous year. Oddly enough, the Deep Purple version of the tune was virtually ignored in their native England. The song was included on the album Shades Of Deep Purple, the first of three LPs to be released in the US on Tetragrammaton Records, a label partially owned by actor/comedian Bill Cosby. When Tetragrammaton folded shortly after the release of the third Deep Purple album, The Book Of Taleisyn, the band was left without a US label, and went through some personnel changes, including the addition of new lead vocalist Ian Gillian (who had sung the part of Jesus on the original Jesus Christ Superstar album), before signing to Warner Brothers and becoming a major force in 70s rock. Meanwhile, original vocalist Rod Evans hooked up with drummer Bobby Caldwell and two former members of Iron Butterfly to form Captain Beyond before fading from public view.
Artist: Outsiders
Title: I'm Not Trying To Hurt You
Source: Mono LP: In
Writer(s): King/Kelley/Turek
Label: Capitol/EMI
Year: 1967
The Starfires were a Cleveland band founded in 1958 by 15-year-old guitarist Tom King that played mostly instrumental cover versions of R&B hits. Over the next few years they released several singles on small independent labels such as Pama (owned by King's uncle), usually billed as Tom King And The Starfires. In 1964, in the wake of the British invasion, the band added vocalist Sonny Geraci. Around this time King entered a songwriting partnership with his brother in law, Chet Kelley, providing the Starfires with most of their original material. In late 1965 the Starfires recorded a King/Kelley composition called Time Won't Let Me, which led to the band signing with Capitol Records. For reasons that are not entirely clear the band changed its name to the Outsiders before releasing the song in February of 1966. The success of Time Won't Let Me led to the Outsiders recording an entire album that included five King/Kelley originals along with half a dozen cover songs, a typical mix for 1966. The Outsiders ended up recording three LPs for Capitol before splitting up. I'm Not Trying To Hurt You was the B side of the first single released from In, the third and final Outsiders album.
Artist: Who
Title: Glittering Girl
Source: Mono CD: The Who Sell Out (bonus track)
Writer(s): Pete Townshend
Label: MCA
Year: Recorded 1967, released 1995
The Who often recorded more material than they could fit on an album, resulting in several unreleased tracks remaining in the vaults for years. One of these was Glittering Girl, a Pete Townshend tune that was recorded around the same time as the songs on The Who Sell Out. Although originally intended for single release (they went with Pictures Of Lily instead), Glittering Girl was finally issued as a bonus track on the 1995 CD release of The Who Sell Out.
Artist: Box Tops
Song: The Letter
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer: Wayne Carson
Label: Mala
Year: 1967
Here's an unusual recipe for you: take one novice producer, add a newly-signed band that hadn't even decided on a name yet, and mix in a songwriter that had recently submitted his first demo tape to the novice producer's ex-boss. Put them all together and you get The Letter, a song by the Box Tops that goes all the way to the top of the charts and stays there for four weeks.
Artist: Seeds
Title: March Of The Flower Children
Source: Mono British import CD: Singles A's and B's (originally released as 45 RPM single B side and included on LP: Future)
Writer: Saxon/Hooper
Label: Big Beat (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year: 1967
There were two things that made the Seeds stand out among the many L.A. bands of the psychedelic era. First, they were the band most associated with the Flower Power movement. Second, the band, particularly lead vocalist Sky Saxon, had a reputation for being more than slightly weird. Both of these qualities are on display on the song March Of The Flower Children that appeared as a B side in June of 1967. The song was also chosen to open the band's third LP, Future, a couple of months later.
Artist: Blossom Toes
Title: People Of The Royal Parks
Source: British import CD: We Are Ever So Clean
Writer(s): Kevin Westlake
Label: Sunbeam (original label: Marmalade)
Year: 1968
Originally known as the Ingoes, Blossom Toes were discovered playing in Paris (where they had released an EP) by Giorgio Gomelsky, manager of the Yardbirds, who signed them to his own label, Marmalade, in 1967. Everyone on the British music scene was talking about (and listening to) the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, trying to figure out how to apply the album's advanced production techniques to their own material, including Gomelsky and Blossom Toes. The result was an album called We Are Ever So Clean, one of the first post-Sgt. Pepper albums to be released in the UK. The album is considered one of the best examples of British psychedelic music, with the word "whimsical" showing up in most reviews. The term certainly applies to People Of The Royal Parks, one of two pieces on the album written solely by drummer Kevin Westlake (he is credited as co-writer on two others).
Artist: Johnny Society
Title: Lucky
Source: CD: Hope Machine
Writer(s): Kenny, Gwen, Ava Siegel
Label: Old Soul
Year: 2026
One of the most respected music producers, songwriters, multi-instrumentalists, and recording engineers on the New York independent music scene is Kenny Siegel. Siegel, himself a Grammy Award winner, formed the Johnny Society in the mid-1990s. In February of 2026 they released Hope Machine, their first album since 2012. Lucky is just one of the many outstanding tracks on the album.
Artist: Mommyheads
Title: Statues (Paintings, Poems And Books)
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 Statues (Paintings, Poems And Books). All members provide vocals.
Artist: Infrared Radiation Orchestra
Title: I Had A Horse
Source: CD Stairs
Writer(s): Kim Draheim
Label: GTG
Year: 2026
Guitarist/Vocalist Kim Draheim calls the Infrared Radiation Orchestra's 2026 album Stairs, "our most thematically unified offering to date". He also mentions that his most recent songwriting has drawn from his own past. Finally, he mentions that I Had A Horse is a true story. 'Nuff said.
Artist: Traffic
Title: Paper Sun
Source: Mono CD: Mr. Fantasy (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Winwood/Capaldi
Label: Island (original US label: United Artists)
Year: 1967
One of the first British acid-rock bands was a group called Deep Feeling, which included drummer Jim Capaldi and woodwind player Chris Wood. At the same time Deep Feeling was experimenting with psychedelia, another, more commercially oriented band, the Spencer Davis Group, was tearing up the British top 40 charts with hits like Keep On Running, Gimme Some Lovin' and I'm A Man. The undisputed star of the Spencer Davis Group was a teenaged guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist named Steve Winwood, who was also beginning to make his mark as a songwriter. Along with guitarist/vocalist Dave Mason, who had worked with Capaldi in earlier bands, they formed Traffic in the spring of 1967, releasing their first single, Paper Sun, in May of that year. Capaldi and Winwood had actually written the tune while Winwood was still in the Spencer Davis Group, and the song was an immediate hit in the UK. This was followed quickly by an album, Mr. Fantasy, that, as was the common practice at the time in the UK, did not include Paper Sun. When the album was picked up by United Artists Records for US release in early 1968, however, Paper Sun was included as the LP's opening track. The US version of the album was originally titled Heaven Is In Your Mind, but was quickly retitled Mr. Fantasy to match the original British title (although the alterations in track listing remained).
Artist: Traffic
Title: Coloured Rain
Source: LP: Best Of Traffic (originally released on LP: Heaven Is In Your Mind)
Writer(s): Winwood/Capaldi/Wood
Label: United Artists
Year: 1967
Traffic, in its early days, was a band with an almost schizophrenic identity. On the one hand there was Steve Winwood, who was equally adept at guitar, keyboards and vocals and was generally seen as the band's leader, despite being its youngest member. His opposite number in the band was Dave Mason, an early example of the type of singer/songwriter that would be a major force in popular music in the mid-1970s. The remaining members of the band, drummer/vocalist Jim Capaldi and flautist/saxophonist Chris Wood, tended to fall somewhere between the two, although they more often sided with Winwood in his frequent creative disputes with Mason. One of these disputes involved the choice of the band's second single. Mason wanted to follow up the successful Paper Sun with his own composition, Hole In My Shoe, while the rest of the band preferred the group composition, Coloured Rain. Mason won that battle, but would end up leaving the band before the release on the group's first LP, Mr. Fantasy. This in turn led to the album being revised considerably for its US release, which was issued under a completely different title, Heaven Is In Your Mind, with most of Mason's contributions being excised from the album (although, oddly enough, Hole In My Shoe, which was not on the original LP, was included on the US album). One final example of the band's schizophrenic nature was in the way the group was marketed. In the US, Traffic was, from the beginning, perceived as a serious rock band along the lines of Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience. In their native land, however, they were, thanks in part to the top 40 success of both Paper Sun and Hole In My Shoe as well as Winwood's fame as lead vocalist for the Spencer Davis Group, dismissed as a mere pop group. Mason would rejoin and leave the group a couple more times before achieving solo success in the mid-70s with the hit We Just Disagree, while Traffic would go on to become a staple of progressive FM rock radio in the US.
Artist: Traffic
Title: Heaven Is In Your Mind
Source: Mono CD: Mr. Fantasy
Writer(s): Winwood/Capaldi/Wood
Label: Island (original 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 the first track on the album, 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 stereo one.
Artist: Trolls
Title: Every Day And Every Night
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Jordan/Clark
Label: ABC
Year: 1966
The Trolls were a garage rock band from Chicago consisting of Richard Clark (organ), Ken Cortese (drums), Rick Gallagher (guitar), and Max Jordan (bass). Like many Chicago area groups, they showed a stronger Beatles influence that most American garage bands, who tended to favor the rougher Rolling Stones approach. Their first single, Every Day And Every Night, was one of the last to be released on the ABC Paramount label, but was recalled and re-released as one of the first on the ABC label when it was discovered that the original label had the name of the song wrong. It's probably a good thing that Every Day And Every Night never made the big time, as it would have drawn considerable flack from the then-new women's liberation movement no doubt. Then again, the band did call themselves the Trolls.
Artist: Eric Burdon And The Animals
Title: A Girl Named Sandoz
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Burdon/Briggs/Weider/McCulloch/Jenkins
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1967
The original Animals officially disbanded at the end of 1966, but before long a new group, Eric Burdon And The Animals, had arrived to take its place. Unlike the original Animals, this new band wrote nearly all their own material, with credits going to the entire membership on every song. The first single from this new band was a song called When I Was Young, a semi-autobiographical piece with lyrics by Burdon that performed decently, if not spectacularly, on the charts in both the US and the UK. It was the B side of that record, however, a tune called A Girl Named Sandoz, that truly indicated what this new band was about. Sandoz was the name of the laboratory that originally developed and manufactured LSD, and the song itself is a thinly-veiled tribute to the mind-expanding properties of the wonder drug. It would soon become apparent that whereas the original Animals were solidly rooted in American R&B (with the emphasis on the B), this new group was pure acid-rock (with the emphasis on acid).
Artist: Randy Newman
Title: Last Night I Had A Dream
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Randy Newman
Label: Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
Randy Newman has, over the course of the past fifty-plus years, established himself as a Great American Writer of Songs. His work includes dozens of hit singles (over half of which were performed by other artists), nearly two dozen movie scores and eleven albums as a solo artist. Newman has won five Grammys, as well as two Oscars and Three Emmys. Last Night I Had A Dream was Newman's second single for the Reprise label (his third overall), coming out the same year as his first LP, which did not include the song.
Artist: Monkees
Title: Tear Drop City
Source: Stereo 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Boyce/Hart
Label: Colgems
Year: 1969
Tear Drop City was originally intended to be the first Monkees single, but was shelved when Last Train To Clarksville was chosen instead. It did, however, become the first Monkees single to be released in stereo three years later, as well as the first single to released after Peter Tork left the group.
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Title: Mexico
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single B side and included on LP: Early Flight)
Writer(s): Grace Slick
Label: Rhino (original label: RCA Victor)
Year: 1970
The B side of the last Jefferson Airplane single to include founding member (and original leader) Marty Balin was Mexico, a scathing response by Grace Slick to President Richard Nixon's attempts to eradicate the marijuana trade between the US and Mexico. The song was slated to be included on the next Airplane album, Long John Silver, but Balin's departure necessitated a change in plans, and Mexico did not appear on an LP until Early Flight was released in 1974.
Artist: Blues Magoos
Title: Sybil Green (Of The In Between)
Source: Kaleidoscopic Compendium (originally released on LP: Basic Blues Magoos)
Writer(s): Gilbert/Scala
Label: Mercury
Year: 1968
After parting with an increasingly bubble-gum oriented management team, the Blues Magoos set out to reinvent themselves as a more progressive rock band in 1968. The resulting LP, Basic Blues Magoos, was (with the exception of four songs) self-produced and self-recorded, and showed a side of the band that had not been heard before on songs like Sybil Green (Of The In Between). The group was unable to shed their baggage in the eyes of the record-buying public, however, and the album sold poorly, prompting lineup and label changes that led to the band's demise.
Artist: Chocolate Watchband
Title: Sitting There Standing
Source: Mono LP: Riot On Sunset Strip
Writer(s): Aguilar/Andrijasevich/Flores/Toomis/Tolby
Label: Tower
Year: 1967
The members of the Chocolate Watchband, by their own admission, were far more interested in playing to a live audience than getting anything down on tape. As a result, their studio output is a poor representation of who they were as a band. There are a few tracks, however, that managed to capture the real Chocolate Watchband in their element. One of these, Sitting There Standing, came about almost by accident. The band had been flown down to Los Angeles to appear in the movie Riot On Sunset Strip, but only had one song ready to go, a Dave Aguilar song called Don't Need Your Lovin'. Faced with the need for a second song, the band quickly came up with Sitting There Standing, which was essentially the Yardbirds' The Nazz Are Blue (one of the Watchband's most popular stage numbers) with improvised new lyrics. The band then performed both numbers live on the Paramount soundstage, with members of the cast and crew serving as an audience. The tapes were then played back with the band faking a performance at a mockup of the legendary L.A. teen club Pandora's Box (which by then had been closed down and earmarked for demolition by the Los Angeles City Council) for use in the film itself. As it turned out, the sequence was the high point of the entire movie.
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, they re-recorded A Simple Desultory Philippic, including it on their third Columbia LP, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. The song is a deliberate parody of/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: Paul Revere and the Raiders
Title: Steppin' Out
Source: Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Revere/Lindsay
Label: Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1965
1965 was the year that Paul Revere and the Raiders hit the big time. The Portland, Oregon combo had already been performing together for several years, and had been the first rock band to record Louie Louie in the spring of 1963, getting airplay on the West Coast and Hawaii but losing out nationally to another Portland group, the Kingsmen, whose version was recorded the same month as the Raiders'. While playing in Hawaii the group came to the attention of Dick Clark, who was looking for a band to appear on his new afternoon TV program, Where The Action Is. Clark introduced the band to Terry Melcher, a successful producer at Columbia Records, which led to the Raiders being the first actual rock band signed by the label. Appearing on Action turned out to be a major turning point for the group, who soon became the show's defacto hosts as well as house band. The Raiders' first national hit in their new role was Steppin' Out, a song written by Revere and vocalist Mark Lindsay about a guy returning from military service (as Revere himself had done in the early 60s, reforming the Raiders upon his return) and finding out his girl had been unfaithful. Working with Melcher, the Raiders enjoyed a run of hits from 1965-67 unequalled by any other Amercian rock band of the time.
Artist: Kinks
Title: You Really Got Me
Source: Simulated stereo LP: Golden Days Of British Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Ray Davies
Label: Sire (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1964
Although the Beatles touched off the British Invasion, it was the sheer in-your-face simplicity of You Really Got Me, recorded by an "upstart band of teenagers" from London's Muswell Hill district named the Kinks and released in August of 1964 that made the goal of forming your own band and recording a hit single seem to be a viable one. And sure enough, within a year garages and basements all across America were filled with guitars, amps, drums and aspiring high-school age musicians, some of whom would indeed get their own records played on the radio.
