Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1640 (starts 10/5/16)

Artist:    Mothers Of Invention
Title:    You're Probably Wondering Why I'm Here
Source:    CD: Freak Out!
Writer(s):    Frank Zappa
Label:    Ryko (original label: Verve)
Year:    1966
    Once upon a time in a semi-mythical city known as Los Angeles there was a bar band called the Soul Giants. This band, led by one Frank Zappa, was known for its rendition of blues and R&B songs, but was slowly adding several original tunes written by Zappa. In 1966 producer Tom Wilson, who had recently relocated to L.A. from New York, signed the Soul Giants to the Verve label, believing them to be (according to Zappa) a white blues band in the vein of New York's Blues Project, whose first two albums Wilson had produced. Although he soon discovered that the newly-rechristened Mothers were far more experimental than he had at first thought, he became an ardent supporter of the band, even risking his own position with the label to secure additional funding for what would become Freak Out, the first double-LP debut album in rock music history. Musically  the album covers a lot of ground, including R&B, doo-wop, blues-rock and even avant-garde classical in the vein of John Kay. Zappa himself later referred to Freak Out as a concept album satirizing American pop culture. Although it appears as the last track of the first LP, You're Probably Wondering Why I'm Here is a natural show opener, and is being used as such to open  this week's edition of Stuck in the Psychedelic Era.

Artist:    Strawberry Alarm Clock
Title:    The Birdman Of Alkatrash
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Mark Weitz
Label:    Uni
Year:    1967
    The Birdman of Alkatrash was originally intended to be an A side. For some reason radio stations instead began playing the other side of the record and it became one of the biggest hits of 1967. That other side? Incense and Peppermints.

Artist:    October Country
Title:    My Girlfriend Is A Witch
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Michael Lloyd
Label:    Rhino (original label: Epic)
Year:    1968
    By 1968 the L.A. under-age club scene was winding down, and several now out of work bands were making last (and sometimes only) attempts at garnering hits in the studio. One such band was October Country, whose first release had gotten a fair amount of local airplay, but who had become bogged down trying to come up with lyrics for a follow-up single. Enter Michael Lloyd, recently split from the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band and looking to become a record producer. Lloyd not only produced and wrote the lyrics for My Girlfriend Is A Witch, he also ended up playing drums on the record as well.

Artist:    Q'65
Title:    Cry In The Night
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):    Bieler/Nuyens/Baar
Label:    Rhino (original label: Decca)
Year:    1966
    Formed in the Hague in 1965, Holland's Q'65 were living proof that you didn't have to have anglo roots to rock out in the 1960s. The group, consisting of Wim Beiler on vocals and harmonica, Frank Nuyens and Joop Roelofs on guitars, Peter Vink on bass and Jar Baar on drums, recorded several songs for the Decca label in late 1965, the first of which was issued as a single in early 1966. Their second single, The Life I Live, featured an equally strong B side, Cry In The Night, that could easily stand beside punk classics by groups like the Pretty Things or the Shadows Of Knight. Q'65 continued to release records in the Netherlands for various labels through the early 1970s.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Mother's Little Helper
Source:    Simulated stereo LP: Through The Past, Darkly (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1966
    By 1966 the Rolling Stones had already had a few brushes with the law over their use of illegal drugs. Mother's Little Helper, released in spring of 1966, is a scathing criticism of the parents of the Stones' fans for their habitual abuse of "legal" prescription drugs while simultaneously persecuting those same fans (and the band itself) for smoking pot. Perhaps more than any other song that year, Mother's Little Helper illustrates the increasingly hostile generation gap that had sprung up between the young baby boomers and the previous generation.

Artist:    Mouse And The Traps
Title:    Maid Of Sugar-Maid Of Spice
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Henderson/Weiss
Label:    Rhino (original label: Fraternity)
Year:    1966
    Mouse (Ronnie Weiss) was, for a time, the most popular guy in Tyler, Texas, at least among the local youth. His band, Mouse and the traps, had a series of regional hits that garnered airplay at stations all across the state (and a rather large state at that). Although Mouse's first big hit, A Public Execution, had a strong Dylan feel to it, subsequent releases covered a wide range of styles, such as the garage-rock of his 1966 single Maid Of Sugar-Maid Of Spice.

Artist:      Young Rascals
Title:     Good Lovin'
Source:      CD: Time Peace-The Rascals' Greatest Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Clark/Resnick
Label:    Atlantic
Year:     1966
     The most successful band ever to come from Long Island was originally called the Rascals. Atlantic Records, for reasons now unknown, convinced the band to add the word "Young" to their name, which was how they were known until 1968 or so, when they went back to their original appellation. Among their many well-known hits was Good Lovin', one of the few songs that deserves the tag "iconic".

Artist:     Bob Dylan
Title:     It Ain't Me Babe
Source:     Mono CD: Best of the Original Mono Recordings (originally released on LP: Another Side Of Bob Dylan)
Writer:     Bob Dylan
Label:     Columbia/Legacy
Year:     1964
     One of Bob Dylan's best known songs was It Ain't Me Babe, from his 1964 album Another Side Of Bob Dylan. The song was electrified by the Turtles the following year, becoming their first hit single.

Artist:    Country Joe And The Fish
Title:    Rock Coast Blues/Magoo
Source:    LP: I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die
Writer(s):    Joe McDonald
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
    Although not as strong an album as their debut LP seven months earlier, Country Joe And The Fish's second effort for Vanguard, I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die, is nonetheless a classic slice of vintage 1967 San Francisco psychedelia, as can plainly be heard on Rock Coast Blues, which segues into a spacy thing called Magoo.

Artist:    Wild Flowers
Title:    More Than Me
Source:    Mono CD: A Heavy Dose Of Lyte Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    The Wildflowers
Label:    Arf! Arf! (original label: Aster)
Year:    1967
    Phoenix, Arizona, was home to the Wildflowers, a band that included bassist Michael Bruce, who would go on to become a founding member of Alice Cooper. The Wildflowers only released a couple of singles on the local Aster label, the second of which was More Than Me, released in 1967.

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    Hideaway
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: Underground)
Writer(s):    Lowe/Tulin
Label:    Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    After the moderately successful first Electric Prunes album, producer David Hassinger loosened the reigns a bit for the followup, Underground. Among the original tunes on Underground was Hideaway, a song that probably would have been a better choice as a single than what actually got released: a novelty tune called Dr. Feelgood written by Annette Tucker and Nancie Mantz, who had also written the band's first hit, I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night).

Artist:    Mystery Trend
Title:    Johnny Was A Good Boy
Source:    Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Nagle/Cuff
Label:    Rhino (original label: Verve)
Year:    1967
    The Mystery Trend was a bit of an anomaly. Contemporaries of bands such as the Great! Society and the Charlatans, the Trend always stood apart from the rest of the crowd, playing to an audience that was both a bit more affluent and a bit more "adult" (they were reportedly the house band at a Sausalito strip club). Although they played in the city itself as early as 1965, they did not release their first record until early 1967. The song, Johnny Was A Good Boy, tells the story of a seemingly normal middle-class kid who turns out to be a monster (without actually specifying what he did), surprising friends, family and neighbors. The same theme would be used by XTC in the early 1980s in the song No Thugs In Our House, one of the standout tracks from their landmark English Settlement album.

Artist:    "E" Types
Title:    Put The Clock Back On The Wall
Source:    CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Bonner/Gordon
Label:    Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year:    1967
    The E-Types were originally from Salinas, California, which at the time was known for it's sulfiric smell by travelers along US 101. As many people from Salinas apparently went to "nearby" San Jose (about 60 miles to the north) as often as possible, the E-Types became regulars on the local scene, eventually landing a contract with Tower Records and Ed Cobb, who also produced the Standells and the Chocolate Watchband. The Bonner/Gordon songwriting team were just a couple months away from getting huge royalty checks from the Turtles' Happy Together when Put The Clock Back On The Wall was released in early 1967. The song takes its title from a popular phrase of the time. After a day or two of losing all awareness of time (and sometimes space) it was time to put the clock back on the wall, or get back to reality if you prefer.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    The Ballad Of You & Me & Pooniel (live long version)
Source:    CD: After Bathing At Baxter's (bonus track)
Writer(s):    Paul Kantner
Label:    RCA/BMG Heritage
Year:    1967
    Jefferson Airplane's original plan for their third album, After Bathing At Baxter's, was to open the LP with a live, eleven-minute version of The Ballad Of You & Me & Pooniel. Plans changed, and a shorter studio version of the track was instead included as part of the first of six suites that made up the final album. This is the original live recording of the song, included as a bonus track on the remastered CD version of After Bathing At Baxter's.

Artist:    Velvet Illusions
Title:    Acid Head
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Weed/Radford
Label:    Rhino (original label: Metromedia, also released on Tell Records)
Year:    1967
    Showing an obvious influence by the Electric Prunes (a suburban L.A. band that was embraced by the Seattle scene as one of their own) the Illusions backtracked the Prunes steps, leaving their native Yakima and steady gigging for the supposedly greener pastures of the City of Angels. After a few months of frustration in which the band seldom found places to practice, let alone perform, they headed back to Seattle to cut this lone single, Acid Head, before calling it quits.

Artist:    Crazy World Of Arthur Brown
Title:    Fanfare-Fire Poem/Fire
Source:    Mono British import CD: The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown
Writer(s):    Brown/Crane/Finesilver/Ker
Label:    Polydor (mono version not released in US)
Year:    1968
    When the master tapes for the debut album of The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown were sent over to the US, the people at Atlantic Records were understandably blown away by the creativity and sheer bizarreness of what they were hearing. On the other hand, they were not happy with the overall sound of the record, and, working with Brown, made extensive changes to side one of the album, including the addition of strings and the deletion of short audio bits between tracks. The band's drummer, Drachen Theaker, was especially upset with the changes, as he felt his drums were buried in the new mix. According to Brown, when the band first heard an acetate copy of the new mix, Theaker jumped over a table, took the record off the turntable and smashed it on the wall. Nonetheless, the remixed album was a commercial success that Brown was never able to equal, thanks in no small part to the inclusion of the tune Fire, which is still one of the most recognizable songs of the late 1960s.

Artist:    Beacon Street Union
Title:    Mystic Mourning
Source:    British import CD: The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union
Writer(s):    Ulaky/Weisberg/Rhodes
Label:    See For Miles (original label: M-G-M)
Year:    1967
    If I had to choose one single recording that represents the psychedelic era, my choice would be Mystic Mourning, from the album The Eyes Of The Beacon Street Union. Everything about the tune screams (whispers? purrs?) psychedelic, starting with a short spacy intro of electric piano over cymbals, leading into a raga beat with a solo bass line that builds up to a repeating riff that ends up getting played at various times by guitar, bass, and/or piano. The lyrics are appropriately existential, and both guitar and piano get a chance to show their stuff over the course of the nearly six-minute track.

Artist:     Southwest F.O.B.
Title:     Smell Of Incense
Source:     LP: Smell Of Incense
Writer:     Markley/Morgan
Label:     Hip
Year:    1968
     When I first ran across the album called Smell Of Incense I immediately recognized the title as being the same as one of the better songs by the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. As it turns out it's because Southwest F.O.B. issued their version of the Bob Markley/Ron Morgan song as their only single, and used it as the opening track on their only LP as well. What I didn't realize at the time is that Southwest F.O.B (F.O.B. standing for "freight on board") was the launching pad for the careers of England Dan Seals and John Ford Coley. The duo had a string of solo hits in the late 1970s, and Seals went on to become one of the top country artists of the 1980s (his song Bop is still heard on some of the more inclusive country stations).

Artist:     Blues Magoos
Title:     Yellow Rose
Source:     CD: Kaleidoscopic Compendium (originally released on LP: Basic Blues Magoos)
Writer:     Gilbert/Theilhelm
Label:     Mercury
Year:     1968
     The Blues Magoos was probably the most successful psychedelic band to hail from America's East Coast (specifically, The Bronx, NY). Unfortunately, that isn't saying much, as most successful psychedelic bands came from either California or Texas in the US, or from the UK. Still, the Magoos had a fair share of decent recordings. The band enjoyed their greatest artistic freedom on the 1968 album Basic Blues Magoos, much of which was recorded at their own home studios. As a result, Yellow Rose does not sound much like anything else the band ever released (although it is still quite psychedelic in its own way).

Artist:    Moby Grape
Title:    Lazy Me
Source:    LP: Moby Grape
Writer(s):    Bob Mosley
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1967
    Such is the quality of the first Moby Grape LP that there are many outstanding tracks that have gotten virtually no airplay in the years since the album was released. Lazy Me, written by bassist Bob Mosley, is one of those tracks. Enjoy.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Horse Latitudes/Moonlight Drive
Source:    LP: Strange Days
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    Much of the second Doors album consisted of songs that were already in the band's repertoire when they signed with Elektra Records but for various reasons did not record for their debut LP. One of the earliest was Jim Morrison's Moonlight Ride, which he wrote even before the band was formed. As was the case with all the Doors songs on their first three albums, the tune was credited to the entire band. Horse Latitudes, which leads into Moonlight Ride, was also an obvious Morrison composition, as it is essentially a piece of Morrison poetry with a soundtrack provided by the rest of the band.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    World Of Pain
Source:    Mono Russian import LP: Disraeli Gears
Writer(s):    Pappalardi/Collins
Label:    Lilith (original label: Atco)
Year:    1967
    Whereas the first Cream LP was made up of mostly blues-oriented material, Disraeli Gears took a much more psychedelic turn, due in large part to the songwriting team of Jack Bruce and Pete Brown. The Bruce/Brown team was not, however, the only source of material for the band. Both Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker made contributions, as did Cream's unofficial fourth member, keyboardist/producer Felix Pappalardi, who, along with his wife Janet Collins, provided World Of Pain.

Artist:    Chocolate Watchband
Title:    No Way Out
Source:    CD: No Way Out
Writer(s):    Ed Cobb
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Tower)
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, 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 had not released.

Title:    Cinnamon Girl
Source:    LP: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1969
    My favorite Neil Young song has always been Cinnamon Girl. I suspect this is because the band I was in the summer after I graduated from high school used an amped-up version of the song as our show opener (imagine Cinnamon Girl played like I Can See For Miles and you get a general idea of how it sounded). If we had ever recorded an album, we probably would have used that arrangement as our first single. I finally got to see Neil Young perform the song live (from the 16th row even) with Booker T. and the MGs as his stage band in the mid-1990s. It was worth the wait.

Artist:    Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
Title:    Helpless
Source:    CD: déjà vu
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1970
    Many of the songs on the second Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young album, Deja Vu, sound as if they could have been on solo albums by the various band members, particularly Neil Young, whose style really didn't mesh well with the others. A prime example of this is Helpless. Despite this (or maybe because of it) Helpless got more radio airplay than most of the other songs on the album.

Title:    Down By The River
Source:    LP: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1969
    Down By The River is one of four songs on the album Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere that Neil Young wrote while running a fever of 103 degrees Fahrenheit (that's 39.5 degrees for people in civilized nations that use the Celsius, aka centrigrade, scale). By some strange coincidence, they are the four best songs on the album. I wish I could have been that sick in my days as a wannabe rock star.

Artist:     Who
Title:     It's Not True
Source:     Mono Canadian import CD: The Who Sings My Generation
Writer:     Pete Townshend
Label:     MCA (original label: Decca)
Year:     1965
     Released in December, 1965, the first Who album (called simply My Generation in the UK) was recorded while the band was in their "maximum R&B" phase. The band members themselves were not happy with the album, feeling that they had been rushed through the entire recording process and did not have much say in how the final product sounded. Still, the album is considered one of the most influential debut albums of all time and has made several critics' top albums lists over the years. It's Not True, a song that critically addresses the ridiculousness of unfounded rumors, is fairly typical of the songs Pete Townshend was writing at the time.

Artist:    Animals
Title:    The Other Side Of This Life
Source:    LP: The Best Of Eric Burdon And The Animals-Vol. II (originally released in US on LP: Animalism)
Writer(s):    Fred Neil
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1966
    The final album by the original Animals was a late 1966 collection of mostly blues covers that was released only in the US. Animalism (not to be confused with the UK LP Animalisms from earlier in the year which was the basis for the US album Animalization) was recorded in Los Angeles, possibly at the same time as the Mothers Of Invention album Freak Out. Frank Zappa collaborated on at least one of the album's songs (All Night Long) and is listed as a co-producer of the band's version of Fred Neil's best-known tune, The Other Side Of This Life, which was being performed regularly by several California bands (including Jefferson Airplane) at around the same time.

 Artist:    Dantalion's Chariot
Title:    The Madman Running Through The Fields
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):    Money/Somers
Label:    Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1967
    In the early to mid 1960s the US had literally hundreds of talented artists whose records appeared on the Rhythm & Blues charts, sometimes crossing over to the pop charts as well. In the UK, these artists were a distant legend, although their music was quite popular there. To fill a demand for live R&B in British clubs, several cover bands popped up throughout the decade. One of the most popular, and musically accomplished, bands on the London R&B/soul scene was Zoot Money's Big Roll Band. As the decade rolled on, however, public tastes started changing, and the Big Roll Band was finding it difficult to find steady work. Money responded to the situation by disbanding the group and forming the four-piece Dantalion's Chariot in 1967. The band soon gained a reputation for both their musicianship and their light show, and were considered, along with Pink Floyd and Tomorrow, to be the cream of the crop of British psychedelic bands. Unfortunately, the band had too much talent to survive long, and split up by the end of the year. Just how talented were they? Well, in addition to Money himself on vocals and keyboards, the band included a guitarist named Andy Somers, who would eventually change the spelling of his last name to Summers and form a band called the Police. Then there was the drummer, Colin Allen, who would soon resurface as a member of John Mayall's new band on the album Blues From Laurel Canyon. Not bad for a group that only released one single.