Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1649 (starts 12/7/16)

This week we range far in wide in seach of deep tracks, including a set of album tracks from the Kinks, controlled chaos from Red Crayola and seldom heard tunes from people like Pink Floyd and the Blues Magoos. Enjoy!

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Sympathy For The Devil
Source:    CD: Beggars Banquet
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    Abkco (original label: London)
Year:    1968
    Beggar's Banquet was a turning point for the Rolling Stones. They had just ended their association with Andrew Loog Oldham, who had produced all of their mid-60s records, and instead were working with Jimmy Miller, who was known for his association with Steve Winwood, both in his current band Traffic and the earlier Spencer Davis Group. Right from the opening bongo beats of Sympathy For The Devil, it was evident that this was the beginning of a new era for the bad boys of rock and roll. The song itself has gone on to be one of the defining tunes of album rock radio.

Artist:    Public Nuisance
Title:    America
Source:    CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on CD: Gotta Survive)
Writer(s):    David Houston
Label:    Rhino (original label: Frantic)
Year:    Recorded 1968, released 2003
    Looking and sounding a lot like the Ramones would in the late 70s, Public Nuisance found itself the victim of unusual circumstances that led to the cancellation of their only LP in 1968. Producer Terry Melcher, who had risen to fame as producer of Paul Revere and the Raiders, had made the mistake of rejecting tapes sent to him by a wannabe rock star named Charles Manson. When Manson achieved the fame and notoriety that had eluded him as a musician (by killing a bunch of people), Melcher felt it prudent to go into hiding, shelving the Public Nuisance project in the process. The album was finally released 35 years later on the independent Frantic label.

Artist:    Factory
Title:    Path Through The Forest
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):    Rollings
Label:    Rhino (original label: MGM)
Year:    1968
    Originally known as the Souvenier Badge Factory, the Factory was a British power trio who released their first of two singles, Path Through The Forest, while the band members (Jack Brand, Ian Oates and Bill MacLeod) were still in their teens. When a second single failed to chart the following year the group faded off into obscurity.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Where Have All The Good Times Gone
Source:    Mono LP: The Kink Kontroversy
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1965
    The third Kinks album, The Kink Kontroversy, occupies a unique place in the band's history. The group was still enjoying the success of their early hits like You Really Got Me, yet was beginning to make the transition to the more mature themes heard on songs like A Well Respected Man. The Kink Kontroversy captures the band right in the middle of this transition, with songs like Till The End Of The Day co-existing with tracks like The World Keeps Going Round. In fact, the lead single from the album (actually released in advance of The Kink Kontroversy) encapsulates this transition all by itself, with the aformentioned Till The End Of The Day on the A side, and a song called Where Have All The Good Times Gone occupying the flip side. The band's tour manager once referred to the song as one that a 40-year-old would write. Davies later said that he had been taking inspiration by listening to older people around him voicing their various concerns about life in general. This direction would continue over the next several years, ultimately contributing to the band's longevity.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Holiday In Waikiki
Source:    Mono British import CD: Face To Face
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Sanctuary (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1966
    Ray Davies's original idea for the Kinks' 1966 album Face To Face was to tie all the songs together through the use of sound effects to create one continuous audio track. The band's UK record company vetoed the idea, however, and for the most part the sound effects were left on the cutting room floor. One exception to this was Holiday In Waikiki, which retains its oceanic intro.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Gotta Get The First Plane Home
Source:    Mono LP: The Kink Kontroversy
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1965
    1965 saw the Kinks' Ray Davies begin to blossom as a songwriter, particularly on the LP The Kinks Kontroversy. Whereas previous albums had contained several cover tunes, Kontroversy was made up entirely of Davies compositions such as Gotta Get The First Plane Home. Although Davies was still experimenting with writing in different styles at this point he would soon settle into a groove as rock's most wry commentator on modern British society.

Artist:     Eric Burdon and the Animals
Title:     Yes, I'm Experienced
Source:     British import CD: Winds Of Change
Writer:     Burdon/Briggs/Weider/McCulloch/Jenkins
Label:     Repertoire (original label: M-G-M)
Year:     1967
     A grand tradition dating back to the early Rhythm and Blues recordings was something called the "answer song". Someone would record a song (Hound Dog, for example), that would become popular. In turn, another artist (often a friend of the original one), would then come up with a song that answered the original tune (Bear Cat, in our example earlier). This idea was picked up on by white artists in the late 50s (Hey Paula answered by Hey Paul). True to the tradition, Eric Burdon answered his friend Jimi Hendrix's Are You Experienced with Yes, I'm Experienced from the Winds Of Change album in 1967. The song, credited to Eric Burdon And The Animals, was done in a style similar to another Hendrix tune, Manic Depression.

Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    Chapter 24
Source:    CD: An Introduction To Syd Barrett (originally released on LP: The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn)
Writer(s):    Syd Barrett
Label:    Capitol (original label: Tower)
Year:    1967
    One of the first tracks recorded for the debut Pink Floyd album, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, Chapter 24 is a Syd Barrett composition based on chapter 24 of the I Ching (the ancient Chinese Book of Changes). The tune itself is somewhat of a drone, and was considered for the band's greatest hits package Echoes: The Best Of Pink Floyd, despite never being released as a single.

Artist:     Jefferson Airplane
Title:     How Suite It Is
Source:     LP: After Bathing At Baxters
Writer(s):     Kantner/Cassidy/Dryden/Kaukonen
Label:     RCA Victor
Year:     1967
     The second side of After Bathing At Baxters starts off fairly conventionally (for the Airplane), with Paul Kantner's Watch Her Ride, the first third or so of something called How Suite It Is. This leads (without a break in the audio) into Spare Chaynge, one of the coolest studio jams ever recorded, featuring intricate interplay between Jack Cassidy's bass and Jorma Kaukonen's guitar, with Spencer Dryden using his drum kit as enhancement rather than as a beat-setter. In particular, Cassidy's virtuoso performance helped redefine what could be done with an electric bass.

Artist:    Chambers Brothers
Title:    Time Has Come Today
Source:    CD: The Best Of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released on LP: The Time Has Come)
Writer(s):    Joe and Willie Chambers
Label:    Priority (original label: Columbia)
Year:    LP released 1967, single edit released 1968
    Time Has Come Today has one of the most convoluted histories of any song of the psychedelic era. First recorded in 1966 and released as a two-and-a-half minute single the song flopped. The following year an entirely new eleven minute version of the song was recorded for the album The Time Has Come, featuring an extended pyschedelic section filled with various studio effects. In late 1967 a three minute edited version of the song was released that left out virtually the entire psychedelic section of the recording. Soon after that, the single was pulled from the shelf and replaced by a longer edited version that included part of the psychedelic section. That version became a hit record in 1968, peaking just outside the top 10. This is actually a stereo recreation of that mono second edited version.

Artist:    West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title:    Ritual # 2
Source:    LP: Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil
Writer(s):    Markley/Harris
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1968
    There's a reason music like that of the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band is sometimes called Acid Rock, and Ritual #2, from the band's last album for Reprise, Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil, is as good an example as you'll find. Best listened to with headphones on.

Artist:    The Moon
Title:    Mothers And Fathers
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Without Earth)
Writer(s):    Matthew Moore
Label:    Rhino (original label: Imperial)
Year:    1968
    The Moon was formed by pianist/songwriter Matthew Moore, working with various former members of bands such as the Bel-Aires, Davie Allan And The Arrows and even the Beach Boys (David Marks had taken Al Jardine's place when Jardine had served in the military in the band's early days). The band had a pleasant, light-psychedelic sound, as can be heard on tracks such as Mothers And Fathers, a single taken from their first LP, Without Earth.The group received little support from their label, however, and after a second LP failed to chart the band decided to call it a day as the 1960s drew to a close.

Artist:    Big Brother And The Holding Company
Title:    Oh, Sweet Mary
Source:    LP: Cheap Thrills
Writer(s):    Albin/Andrew/Getz/Gurley/Joplin
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1968
    The only song credited to the entire membership of Big Brother And The Holding Company on their Cheap Thrills album was Oh, Sweet Mary (although the original label credits Janis Joplin as sole writer and the album cover itself gives only Joplin and Peter Albin credit). The tune bears a strong resemblance to Coo Coo, a non-album single the band had released on the Mainstream label before signing to Columbia. Oh, Sweet Mary, however, has new lyrics and a "dreamy" bridge section played at a slower tempo than the rest of the tune.

Artist:        Yardbirds
Title:        Shapes Of Things
Source:   45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer:        Samwell-Smith/Relf/McCarty
Label:        Epic
Year:        1966
        The earliest Yardbirds singles were either covers of blues classics or new tunes written by outside songwriters such as Graham Gouldman. The first hit song for the group that was actually composed by band members was Shapes Of Things, which made the top 5 in the UK and the top 10 stateside. The song was officially credited to vocalist Keith Relf, drummer Jim McCarty and bassist Paul Samwell-Smith, who later said that Jeff Beck deserved a songwriting credit as well for his distinctive lead guitar solo that was a major factor in the record's success.

Artist:    Chocolate Watchband
Title:    Don't Let The Sun Catch You Crying
Source:    Melts In Your Brain, Not On Your Wrist
Writer(s):    Marsden/Chadwick/Maguire/Marsden
Label:    Big Beat
Year:    Recorded 1965, released 2005
    The first incarnation of the Chocolate Watchband was formed in 1965 by Ned Torney and Mark Loomis, students at Foothills Junior College in Los Altos Hills, California (part of the area now known as Silicon Valley). The two guitarists, who had played together in a band called the Chaparells the previous year in nearby Cupertino, recruited bassist Rich Young, organist Jo Kemling and vocalist Danny Phay for their new band. Also joining was drummer Pete Curry, who was soon replaced by Cupertino High School jazz band star Gary Andrijasevich. It was around this time that the group got its name; according to Torney, he and a couple friends were discussing the latest trend in band names from San Francisco: combining two seemingly unrelated words like Jefferson and Airplane. They started throwing out random words of their own and came up with Chocolate Watchband. That fall they cut their first demo tape at Action Recorders in San Mateo. Their choice of material for the session, however, was somewhat odd. The band had already shown a fondness for blues-based British rock bands like the Animals and the Rolling Stones, yet picked a soft Gerry And The Pacemakers hit,
Don't Let The Sun Catch You Crying, for their demo tape. This incarnation of the band only lasted until November of 1965, when Torney, Kemling and Phay all left to form a new group called the Otherside. Of course this was only the beginning for the Chocolate Watchband, but that's a story for another time.

Artist:    Music Machine
Title:    Come On In
Source:    CD: Turn On (also released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer:    Sean Bonniwell
Label:    Collectables (original label: Original Sound)
Year:    1966
    It only cost a total of $150 for the Music Machine to record both sides of their debut single at RCA Studios in Los Angeles, thanks to the band having been performing the songs live for several months. The band then took the tapes to Original Sound, who issued Talk Talk and Come On In on their own label. Although Talk Talk was the obvious hit, Come On In had perhaps a greater influence on later bands such as the Doors and Iron Butterfly.

Artist:    Red Crayola
Title:    War Sucks
Source:    Mono LP: The Parable Of Arable Lands
Writer(s):    Thompson/Cunningham/Barthelme
Label:    International Artists
Year:    1967
    New York had the Velvet Underground. L.A. had the United States of America. San Francisco had 50 Foot Hose. And Texas had the Red Crayola. Formed by art students at the University of St. Thomas (Texas) in 1966, the band was led by singer/guitarist and visual artist Mayo Thompson, along with drummer Frederick Barthelme (brother of novelist Donald Barthelme) and Steve Cunningham. The band was almost universally panned by the rock press but has since achieved cult status as a pioneer of avant-garde psychedelic punk and is considered a forerunner of "lo-fi" rock. The band's debut album, The Parable Of Arable Land, released in 1967, was reportedly recorded in one continuous session and utilizes the services of "The Familiar Ugly", a group of about 50 friends of the band, each of which was invited to play whatever they pleased on whatever sound-producing device they chose to (such as blowing into a soda bottle), filling time between the actual songs on the album. Roky Erickson, leader of the Red Crayola's International Artists labelmates 13th Floor Elevators, can be heard playing organ as part of the cacaphony.

Artist:    Senators
Title:    Psychedelic Senate
Source:    CD: Shape Of Things To Come (originally released on LP: Wild In The Streets soundtrack)
Writer(s):    Les Baxter
Label:    Captain High (original label: Tower)
Year:    1968
    If I had to pick the most unlikely person to record something psychedelic that actually did record something psychedelic, that person would have to be Les Baxter. Born in 1922, Baxter became well-known in the 1940s as a composer and arranger for various swing bands. By the 50s he was leading his own orchestra, recording his own brand of what came to be known as "exotica", easy-listening music flavored with elements taken from non-Western musical traditions. In the 1960s he scored dozens of movie soundtracks, including many for the relatively low-budget American International Pictures, working with people like Roger Corman on films like The Raven, The Pit  And The Pendulum and House Of Usher, as well as teen exploitation films like Beach Blanket Bingo. It was through this association that he got involved with a film called Wild In The Streets in 1968. Although much of the film's soundtrack was made up of songs by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil and performed by the fictional Max Frost And The Troopers, there were a few Baxter pieces included as well, including Psychedelic Senate, a bit of incidental music written to underscore a scene wherein the entire US Senate gets dosed on LSD.

Artist:    Country Joe And The Fish
Title:    Rock And Soul Music
Source:    LP: Woodstock
Writer(s):    McDonald/Melton/Cohen/Barthol/Hirsch
Label:    Cotillion
Year:    1969
    Country Joe and the Fish actually performed Rock and Soul Music twice at Woodstock. The first instance was a short intro that led directly into the next song. This is the piece used on the original Woodstock soundtrack album, which, through the magic of tape editing, leads directly into...

Artist:     Arlo Guthrie
Title:     Coming Into Los Angeles
Source:     LP: Woodstock (originally released on LP: Running Down The Road)
Writer:     Arlo Guthrie
Label:     Cotillion (original label: Rising Son)
Year:     1969
     As seen in the Woodstock movie, Arlo Guthrie performed Coming Into Los Angeles at the Woodstock Arts and Music Festival in 1969. The original Woodstock soundtrack album, however, subsituted this studio version for the live performance of the song. This was probably done at Guthrie's request, as several of the performers expressed dissatisfaction with the recordings made at the festival, either due to problems with the sound system or, in some cases, the performances themselves. This is understandable given the adverse conditions many of them had to deal with (rain, audio problems, lack of sleep, etc.).

Artist:    Bloodrock
Title:    Timepiece
Source:    CD: Bloodrock
Writer(s):    Cobb/Grundy/Hill/Pickens/Rutledge
Label:    One Way (original label: Capitol)
Year:    1970
    Bloodrock started off as a Fort Worth, Texas band called the Naturals. Formed in 1963, the group released their first single in 1965 on the local Rebel label. The band changed their name to Crowd+1 later the same year, a name they kept until 1969, when they hooked up with Grand Funk Railroad manager Terry Knight, who rechristened them Bloodrock. Bloodrock's style varied from straight ahead hard rock to what can best be described as "macabre rock," as can be heard on Timepiece, from their 1970 self-titled debut LP, produced by Knight

Artist:     Standells
Title:     Try It
Source:     LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:     Levine/Bellack
Label:     Rhino (original label: Tower)
Year:     1967
     After a series of singles written by producer Ed Cobb had resulted in diminishing returns, the Standells recorded Try It, a tune co-written by Joey Levine, who would rise to semi-anonymous notoriety as lead vocalist for the Ohio Express, a group that was essentially a vehicle for the Kazenetz/Katz production team, purveyors of what came to be called "bubble gum" music. The song itself was quickly banned on most radio stations under the assumption that the phrase "try it" was a call for teenage girls to abandon their virginity. The fact is that nowhere in the song does the word "teenage" appear, but nonetheless the song failed to make a dent in the charts, despite its catchy melody and danceable beat, which should have garnered it at least a 65 rating on American Bandstand.

Artist:    Move
Title:    (Here We Go Round) The Lemon Tree
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Roy Wood
Label:    A&M
Year:    1967
    The most successful British band of the psychedelic era not to have a US hit was the Move, a band that featured Roy Wood and Jeff Lynne, among other notables. The band was already well established in the UK by 1967, when their single Flowers In The Rain was picked to be the first record played on the new BBC Radio One. The B side of that record was the equally-catchy (Here We Go Round) The Lemon Tree. Both songs were written by Wood, although he only sang lead vocals on the B side.

Artist:    Love
Title:    Old Man
Source:    Comes In Colours (originally released on LP: Forever Changes)
Writer(s):    Bryan MacLean
Label:    Raven (original label: Elektra)
Year:    1967
    An often overlooked fact about the L.A. band Love is that they had not one, but two quality singer/songwriters in the group. Although Arthur Lee wrote the bulk of the band's material, it was Bryan McLean who wrote and sang one of the group's best-known songs, the haunting Alone Again Or, which opens their classic Forever Changes album. A second McLean song, Old Man, was actually one of the first tracks recorded for Forever Changes. At the time, the band's rhythm section was more into sex and drugs than rock and roll, and McLean and Lee arranged to have studio musicians play on Old Man, as well as on one of Lee's songs. The rest of the group was so stunned by this development that they were able to temporarily get their act together long enough to complete the album. Nonetheless, the two tunes with studio musicians were left as is, although reportedly Ken Forssi did step in to show Carol Kaye how the bass part should be played (ironic, since Kaye is estimated to have played on over 10,000 recordings in her long career as a studio musician).

Artist:            Blues Magoos
Title:        Queen of My Nights
Source:       LP: Psychedelic Lollipop
Writer(s):    D. Blue
Label:     Mercury
Year:        1967
        When I moved to a new town (actually a converted Panzer barracks being used as a housing complex for US military dependents in Mainz-Kastel, Germany) in the summer of '67 I was given a crash course in what was cool and what wasn't. For those living off-post (known as living "on the economy") 45 RPM records were the cool thing (albums still being something of a rarity in German stores at the time), especially anything by the Who. As far as albums went, the Blues Magoos' Psychedelic Lollipop (featuring songs like Queen Of My Nights), along with the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, topped the cool list. Unfortunately, I arrived on the scene with more albums by the Monkees than any other group (I had two), which pretty much marked me as uncool, at least until I learned to play guitar myself.

Artist:      Woolies  
Title:     Who Do You Love
Source:      CD: Even More Nuggets (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Elias McDaniel
Label:     Rhino (original label: Dunhill)
Year:     1966
     Lansing, Michigan was home to the Woolies, who scored a big hit covering Bo Diddley's Who Do You Love, thanks in large part to the song being issued on Lou Adler's Dunhill Records, which was at that time one of the hottest new labels around.

Artist:     Harbinger Complex
Title:     I Think I'm Down
Source:     CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era (originally released on 45 RPM vinyl)
Writer:     Hockstaff/Hoyle
Label:     Rhino (original label: Brent)
Year:     1966
     Most garage/club bands never made it beyond a single or two for a relatively small independent label. The Harbinger Complex, from Freemont, California, however, benefitted from a talent search conducted by Bob Shad, owner of Mainstream Records. The band was one of about half a dozen acts from the Bay Area to be signed by Shad in July of 1966, with their first single, I Think I'm Down, appearing on the Brent label later that year.

Artist:    Larry Coryell
Title:    You Don't Know What Love Is
Source:    LP: Lady Coryell
Writer(s):    DePaul/Raye
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1966
    One of the pioneers of jazz-rock fusion, guitarist Larry Coryell had already recorded two albums with vibraphonist Gary Burton and one as leader of the Free Spirits when he released his first solo album, Lady Coryell, in 1968. Most of the album features Coryell's electric guitar work; his version of the jazz standard You Don't Know What Love Is, however, is purely acoustic.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Because
Source:    CD: Abbey Road
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple/Parlophone
Year:    1969
    Take Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. Turn a few notes around, add some variations and write some lyrics. Add the Beatles' trademark multi-part harmonies and you have John Lennon's Because, from the Abbey Road album. A simply beautiful recording.