Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 1713 (B14) (starts 3/28/17)

Attention Firesign Theatre fanatics: this week we have the entire first side of Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers, also known as the George Tirebiter story. We also have artists sets from Cream and the Left Banke and of course all kinds of other stuff, too.

Artist:    Grateful Dead
Title:    The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion)
Source:    CD: The Grateful Dead
Writer:    McGannahan Skjellyfetti
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1967
    I once knew someone from San Jose, California who had an original copy of the single version of The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion), the opening track from the first Grateful Dead album. It was totally worn out from being played a few hundred times, though.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    3rd Stone From The Sun
Source:    LP: Are You Experienced?
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1967
    Jimi Hendrix once stated that he was far more comfortable as a guitarist than as a vocalist, at least in the early days of the Experience. In that case, he was certainly in his element for this classic instrumental from the Are You Experienced album. Many of the sounds heard on 3rd Stone From The Sun were made by superimposing a slowed down recording of the following conversation between Hendrix and producer Chas Chandler over the music:
    Hendrix :   Star fleet to scout ship, please give your position. Over.
    Chandler : I am in orbit around the third planet of star known as sun. Over.
    Hendrix :   May this be Earth? Over.
    Chandler : Positive. It is known to have some form of intelligent species. Over.
    Hendrix :   I think we should take a look (Jimi then makes vocal spaceship noises).
    One of the more notable spoken lines that plays at normal speed on the recording, "To you I shall put an end, then you'll never hear surf music again", was Hendrix's reaction to the news that famed surf guitarist Dick Dale had been diagnosed with a possible terminal case of colon cancer and was meant to encourage his friend's recovery (apparently it worked, as Dick Dale is still going strong as of 2016).  As heard on the 2007 album The Jimi Hendrix Experience: 1966–1967, Hendrix's original overdub included two more sentences "That sounds like a lie to me. Come on, man; let's go home." that were not used on the final recording. The train sequence at the end of the track, incidentally, was done entirely on guitar.

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)
Source:    CD: Psychedelic Pop (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night))
Writer(s):    Tucker/Mantz
Label:    BMG/RCA/Buddah (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1966
    The Electric Prunes biggest hit was I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), released in late 1966 and hitting the charts in early 1967. The record, initially released without much promotion from the record label, was championed by Seattle DJ Pat O'Day of KJR radio, and was already popular in that area when it hit the national charts (thus explaining why so many people assumed the band was from Seattle). I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) has come to be one of the defining songs of the psychedelic era and was the opening track on both the original Lenny Kaye Nuggets compilation and Rhino's first Nuggets LP.

Artist:    Seeds
Title:    Rollin' Machine
Source:    LP: A Web Of Sound
Writer(s):    Sky Saxon
Label:    GNP Crescendo
Year:    1966
    Is there anyone out there that really thinks this is a song about a car? I thought not.

Artist:    Love
Title:    A Message To Pretty
Source:    Australian import CD: Comes In Colours
Writer(s):    Arthur Lee
Label:    Raven (original label: Elektra)
Year:    1966
    1966 was the peak year for the underground (and under-age) club scene in Los Angeles, and Love was the hottest band on that scene. They were so hot, in fact, that they became the first rock band signed to the Elektra label. In addition to high-energy tracks such as My Little Red Book and Hey Joe (the fast version), the album had a generous helping of the Southern California brand of folk-rock, as can be heard on the Arthur Lee compostion A Message To Pretty.

Artist:    Cyrkle
Title:    Why Can't You Give Me What I Want
Source:    Mono LP: Red Rubber Ball
Writer(s):    Dawes/Friedland
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    The Cyrkle was originally a frat-rock band from Easton, Pennsylvania called the Rhondells consisting of Don Danneman on guitar, Tom Dawes on bass, Marty Freid on drums and Earl Pickens on keyboards. In 1965, while playing gigs in Atlantic City they hooked up with a new manager, Brian Epstein, who promptly renamed them the Cyrkle (the odd spelling provided by John Lennon, a member of another band managed by Epstein). Under the new name and management, the band soon found themselves opening for the Beatles (on their last North American tour) and scoring a top 5 hit with Red Rubber Ball in the summer of 1966. The hit single was soon followed by an album of the same name that included a mix of cover tunes and Cyrkle originals such as Why Can't You Give Me What I Want. It was a volatile time in the pop music world, however, and the Cyrkle soon found themselves sounding a bit dated, and by 1968, after one more LP and a series of singles, each of which did successively worse than the previous one, the band decided to throw in the towel.

Artist:    Spirit
Title:    Nature's Way/Animal Zoo/Love Has Found A Way/Why Can't I Be Free
Source:    LP: Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus
Writer(s):    California/Ferguson/Locke
Label:    Epic
Year:    1970
    Spirit was one of those bands that consistently scored well with the critics, yet was never truly able to connect with a large segment of the record buying audience at any given time. Perhaps their best album was Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus, released in 1970 to glowing reviews. Despite this, the album actually charted lower than any of their three previous efforts, and would be the last to feature the band's original lineup. In the long haul, however, Twelve Dreams has become the group's top selling album, thanks to steady catalog sales over a period of years. Unlike many more popular records of the time, Twelve Dreams sounds as fresh and original today as when it first appeared, as can be easily heard on the four-song medley that makes up the bulk of the LP's first side. Indeed, despite never having charted as a single, Nature's Way, a Randy California tune which starts the sequence, is one of the best-known songs in the entire Spirit catalog. Additionally, its ecological theme segues naturally into Animal Zoo, a Jay Ferguson tune with a more satirical point of view. Love Has Found A Way, written by vocalist Ferguson and keyboardist John Locke, can best described as psychedelic space jazz, while Why Can't I Be Free is a simple, yet lovely, short coda from guitarist California. Although Spirit, in various incarnations, would continue to record for many years, they would never put out another album as listenable as Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Sleepy Time Time
Source:    CD: Fresh Cream
Writer(s):    Bruce/Godfrey
Label:    Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year:    1966
    When Cream was first formed, both Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker worked with co-writers on original material for the band. Baker's partner was Pete Brown, while Bruce worked with his wife, Janet Godfrey. Eventually Bruce and Brown began collaborating, creating some of Cream's most memorable songs, but not before Bruce and Godfrey wrote Sleepy Time Time, one of the high points of the Fresh Cream album.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Spoonful
Source:    LP: Homer (soundtrack) (originally released in UK only on LP: Fresh Cream)
Writer(s):    Willie Dixon
Label:    Cotillion (original label: Reaction)
Year:    1966
    When the album Fresh Cream was released by Atco in the US it was missing one track that was on the original UK version of the album: the band's original studio version of Willie Dixon's Spoonful. A live version of Spoonful was included on the LP Wheels of Fire, but it wasn't until the 1970 soundtrack album for the movie Homer that the studio version was finally released in the US. Unfortunately the compilers of that album left out the last 25 seconds or so from the original recording.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Rollin' And Tumblin'
Source:    CD: Fresh Cream
Writer(s):    McKinley Morganfield
Label:    Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year:    1966
    Right from the beginning Cream demonstrated two distinct sides: the psychedelic-tinged studio side and the blues-based live performance side. In the case of the US version of the band's first LP, Fresh Cream, that was literally true, as side one consisted entirely of original songs (mostly written by bassist Jack Bruce) and side two was nearly all covers of blues classics such as Muddy Waters's Rollin' And Tumblin'. What makes this particular recording interesting is the instrumentation used: guitar, vocals, harmonica and drums, with no bass whatsoever. This could be due to the limited number of tracks available for overdubs. Just as likely, though, is the possibility that the band chose to make a recording that duplicated their live performance of the song.

Artist:    Left Banke
Title:    I've Got Something On My Mind
Source:    LP: Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina
Writer(s):    Cameron/Martin/Brown
Label:    Sundazed/Smash
Year:    1967
    I'll never understand the thought processes that went into deciding to name an album after not one, but two of the songs on that album (with a slash no less), but that's exactly what Smash Records did with the first and only Left Banke LP, Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina. Despite what seems to be nothing less than cheap exploitation, the album actually has some nice sounding (if somewhat light) tracks, such as I've Got Something On My Mind.

Artist:    Left Banke
Title:    Pretty Ballerina
Source:    LP: Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina
Writer(s):    Sommer/Brown/Lookofsky
Label:    Smash/Sundazed
Year:    1967
    The Left Banke, taking advantage of bandleader Michael Brown's industry connections (his father owned a New York recording studio), ushered in what was considered to be the "next big thing" in popular music in early 1967: baroque pop. After their debut single, Walk Away Renee, became a huge bestseller, the band followed it up with Pretty Ballerina, which easily made the top 20 as well. Subsequent releases were sabotaged by a series of bad decisions by Brown and the other band members that left radio stations leery of playing any record with the words "Left Banke" on the label.

Artist:    Left Banke
Title:    Lazy Day
Source:    LP: Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina
Writer(s):    Brown/Martin
Label:    Smash/Sundazed
Year:    1967
    Although known mostly for being pioneers of baroque-rock, the Left Banke showed that they could, on occassion, rock out with the best of them on tracks like Lazy Day, which closed out their only LP. The song was also issued as the B side of their second hit, Pretty Ballerina. Incidentally, after the success of their first single, Walk Away Renee, the band formed their own publishing company for their original material, a practice that was fairly common then and now. Interestingly enough, they called that company Lazy Day Music.

Artist:    Shadows Of Knight
Title:    I'm Gonna Make You Mine
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Carr/Derrico/Sager
Label:    Rhino (original label: Dunwich)
Year:    1966
    Possibly the loudest rockin' recordings of 1966 came from the Shadows of Knight. A product of the Chicago suburbs, the Shadows (as they were originally known) quickly established a reputation as the region's resident bad boy rockers (lead vocalist Jim Sohns was reportedly banned from more than one high school campus for his attempts at increasing the local teen pregnancy rate). After signing a record deal with the local Dunwich label, the band learned that there was already a band called the Shadows and added the Knight part (after their own high school sports teams' name). Their first single was a cover of Van Morrison's Gloria that changed one line ("around here" in place of "up to my room") and thus avoided the mass radio bannings that had derailed the original Them version. I'm Gonna Make You Mine was the second follow up to Gloria, but its lack of commercial success consigned the Shadows to one-hit wonder status until years after the band's breakup, when they finally got the recognition they deserved as one of the founding bands of garage/punk, and perhaps its greatest practicioner.

Artist:    Them
Title:    She Put A Hex On You
Source:    LP: Time Out! Time In! For Them
Writer(s):    Lane/Pulley
Label:    Tower
Year:    1968
    After recruiting new lead vocalist Kenny McDowell, Them moved their base of operations to California, where they recorded two LPs for Capitol's tax writeoff label, Tower. The second of these was titled Time Out! Time In! For Them. While the style of the Van Morrison version of the band was very much in the same vein as the early Rolling Stones albums, Time Out! Time In! For Them featured more psychedelic material written by the husband and wife team of Tom Lane and Sharon Pulley. The second track on the album, She Put A Hex On You, superimposes some rather spooky lyrics over an R&B beat, accented by fuzz guitar from Jim Armstrong.

Artist:    Freeborne
Title:    Land Of Diana
Source:    Mono CD: A Heavy Dose Of Lyte Psych (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Spiros/Carston
Label:    Arf! Arf!
Year:    1968
    Although the so-called Boss-Town Sound turned out to be little more than record company hype, the city itself did harbor some talented musicians, such as the members of the Freeborne, who released an album called Peak Impressions on the local Monitor label in 1968. Land Of Diana was the single taken from that album, heard here in an alternate mono mix.

Artist:    Spencer Davis Group
Title:    Morning Sun
Source:    Mono British import CD: Love, Poetry And Revolution (originally released on LP: With Their New Faces On)
Writer(s):    Davis/Hardin/Duncan/James
Label:    Grapefruit (original label: United Artists)
Year:    1968
    Following the departure of brothers Steve and Muff Winwood, the Spencer Davis Group attempted to carry on with new members, releasing an album, With Their New Faces On, in mid-1968. The album, however, failed to chart, despite the presence of strong tunes such as Morning Sun.

Artist:    Deep Purple
Title:    Help!
Source:    LP: Shades Of Deep Purple
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Tetragrammaton
Year:    1968
    It takes brass for a band to include a Beatles cover on their debut LP, especially if they have chosen to completely rearrange the song, a la Vanilla Fudge. Nonetheless, that is exactly what happened on the album Shades Of Deep Purple, which hit the stands in 1968. The Beatles cover song in question is the classic Help! Deep Purple gives it a kind of slow, soft treatment that is both light years away from the original, and, in my opinion, quite an enjoyable listen.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Victoria
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Polygram/PolyTel (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1969
    The Kinks were at their commercial low point in 1969 when they released their third single from their controversial concept album Arthur or The Decline And Fall Of The British Empire. Their previous two singles had failed to chart, even in their native England, and the band had not had a top 20 hit in the US since Sunny Afternoon in 1966. Victoria was a comeback of sorts, as it did manage to reach the #62 spot in the US and the #33 spot in the UK.

Artist:    Gun
Title:    Drives You Mad
Source:    Mono British import CD: Gun (bonus track originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Adrian Gurvitz
Label:    Repertoire (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1969
    Despite a strong debut LP and hit single (Race With The Devil), Britain's Gun ran out of bullets rather quickly. The non-album single Drives You Mad failed to chart, and the group eventually morphed into the Baker-Gurvitz Army, with ex-Cream drummer Ginger Baker.

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

Artist:    Firesign Theatre
Title:    Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers (part one)
Source:    LP: Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers
Writer(s):    Proctor/Bergman/Austin/Ossman
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1970
    The first thing you need to know about the Firesign Theatre is that they were oriented to sound rather than vision. Their use of special effects parallels that of World War II era radio programs, which they often payed tribute to on their albums. They were also pioneers of "concept humor", dedicating an entire album to a single theme, such as the life of George Leroy Tirebiter on the album Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers. Released in 1970 the album focuses on Tirebiter (played by David Ossman), a former child actor who spends his time watching his old movies on TV. Those movies include High School Madness (a parody of the Aldrich Family radio show, among other things), and Parallel Hell, a war film set in Korea. These films are interrupted from time to time by commercials and the sound of the channel being changed to such things as talk shows and TV preachers, both of which were staples of late-night television on stations in the Los Angeles area in the late 1960s. The album title itself is somewhat ambiguous: one interpretation is that the "dwarf" is a roach from a marijuana joint and the "pliers" are actually a roach clip. Another view is that the title was inspired by a photograph on the cover of Bob Dylan's Blonde On Blonde album showing Dylan holding a small picture of a person in one hand and a pair of pliers in the other. Regardless of the title's origins, Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers has been called "the greatest comedy album ever made" by the New Rolling Stone Record Guide. Here we have the entire first side of the album, uninterrupted. Enjoy!

Artist:    Creedence Clearwater Revival
Title:    Up Around The Bend
Source:    LP: Chronicle (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Cosmos Factory)
Writer(s):    John Fogerty
Label:    Fantasy
Year:    1970
    When it comes to feelgood rock and roll, few songs can match the sheer joy of Creedence Clearwater Revival's 1970 hit Up Around The Bend. The song was recorded just days before the band set off on a European tour, and, as part of a double A side single, went into the top 5.