Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2239 (starts 9/19/22)

https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/439132-pe-2239

    It's been probably a year since I received a copy of the Mommyheads CD Age Of Isolation (a rather appropriate name for a work conceived during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic). For one reason after another I never got around until playing anything from it until now, which is a shame, because this is some really good stuff from a band that has been unfairly overlooked by just about everyone for literally decades. The Mommyheads track kicks off an Advanced Psych segment that also includes a piece from Squires of the Subterrain that is also making its Stuck in the Psychedelic Era debut this week. Also on this week's show: artists' sets from the Monkees and the Rolling Stones, and what could well be the longest continuous opening set in Stuck in the Psychedelic Era's history.

Artist:     Guess Who
Title:     Shakin' All Over
Source:     Mono CD: Reelin' and Rockin' Vol. 7 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:     Johnny Kidd
Label:     Happy Days of Rock and Roll (original US label: Scepter)
Year:     1965
     The band that would become internationally famous as the Guess Who formed in Winnipeg, Alberta, Canada in 1960. Originally calling themselves the Silvertones, they were by 1962 known as Chad Allan and the Silvertones, then Chad Allan and the Reflections and finally, by 1964, Chad Allan and the Expressions. During those years they had several lineup changes, scoring a few minor hits on the Canadian charts in the process. Finally, in 1965, with a lineup consisting of Chad Allan, Randy Bachman, Bob Ashley, Jim Kale and Dale Peterson, they decided to try a new tactic. Their latest single, Shakin' All Over, was already huge success in Canada, going all the way to the top of the charts, but the band had their eyes on the US market as well. Deliberately circulating a rumor that the record might actually be a British Invasion supergroup recording under a pseudonym, the band's US label, Scepter Records, issued the record with a plain white label credited to "Guess Who?"  After the song was comfortably ensconced in the US top 40 (peaking at # 22) Scepter revealed that the band was actually Chad Allan and the Expressions. DJs in the US, however, continued to refer to the band as the Guess Who and within a few months the group adopted the new name. The band continued to chart minor hits in Canada using both Chad Allan and the Expressions and the Guess Who on their record labels, and for a time it looked like Shakin' All Over would be their only US hit. Burton Cummings replaced Bob Ashley in late 1965, sharing the lead vocals with Chad Allan, who left the group in 1966. Finally in 1969, after changing labels the Guess Who returned to the US charts with the album Wheatfield Soul, featuring the single These Eyes, and went on to score a series of hits in the early 70s.

Artist:     Animals
Title:     Inside Looking Out
Source:     Simulated stereo LP: Animalization
Writer:     Lomax/Lomax/Burdon/Chandler
Label:     M-G-M
Year:     1966
     The last Animals single to feature original drummer John Steel, Inside Looking Out (a powerful song about life in prison) was adapted from an actual chain gang chant called Rosie, which was included as part of Alan Lomax's Popular Songbook around 1960 or so. Released as a single in early 1966, the song was later included on the LP Animalization. Three years later Grand Funk Railroad recorded an extended version of Inside Looking Out that became a staple of their live show.

Artist:    13th Floor Elevators
Title:    Slip Inside This House
Source:    Mono CD: Easter Everywhere
Writer(s):    Hall/Erickson
Label:    Charly (original US label: International Artists)
Year:    1967
    The 13th Floor Elevators returned from their only California tour in time to celebrate Christmas of 1966 in their native Texas. Not long after that things began to fall apart for the band. Much of this can be attributed to bad management, but at least some of the problems were internal in nature. Lead guitarist Stacy Southerland was caught with marijuana in the trunk of his car, thus causing his probation to be revoked, which in turn meant he was not allowed to leave the Lone Star state. This in turn caused the entire rhythm section to head off for San Francisco, leaving Southerland, along with electric juggest Tommy Hall and vocalist Roky Erickson, to find replacement members in time to start work on the band's second album, Easter Everywhere. Despite this, the album itself came out remarkably well, and is now considered a high point of the psychedelic era. Unlike the first 13th Floor Elevators album, Easter Everywhere was designed to be a primarily spiritual work. Nowhere is this more evident than on the album's opening track, the eight-minute epic Slip Inside This House. Written primarily by Hall, Slip Inside This House was intended to "establish the syncretic concepts behind Western and Eastern religions, science and mysticism, and consolidate them into one body of work that would help redefine the divine essence". While whether he succeeded or not is a matter of opinion, the track itself is certainly worth hearing for yourself. Enjoy.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    White Room (single version)
Source:    LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Wheels Of Fire)
Writer(s):    Bruce/Brown
Label:    United Artists (original label: Atco)
Year:    1968
    In order to get songs played on top 40 radio, record companies made it a practice to shorten album cuts by cutting out extended instrumental breaks and extra verses. This version of the Cream classic White Room, clocking in at just over three minutes, is a typical example.

Artist:    Elephant's Memory
Title:    Brief Encounter
Source:    CD: Elephant's Memory
Writer(s):    Richard Sussman
Label:    BMG/Collector's Choice (original label: Buddah)
Year:    1969
    One of the hardest-to-describe bands of the late 1960s, Elephant's Memory was formed by singer/saxophonist/flautist/clarinetist Stan Bronstein and drummer Rick Frank, along with bassist/trombonist Myron Yules. One early member of the band was vocalist Carly Simon, although by the time the band recorded their debut LP in 1969 she had been replaced by Michal Shapiro. Filling out the band's 1969 lineup were keyboardist Richard Sussman and guitarists John Ward and Chester Ayres. Shapiro's vocals were particularly well suited to the band's jazzier numbers, such as Brief Encounter, which also incorporates elements of latino music.

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    We Ain't Gonna Party Anymore
Source:    CD: All The Singles (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Howard Kaylan
Label:    Manifesto (original label: White Whale)
Year:    1970
    By 1970 relations between White Whale Records and the only artists ever to actually make the label any money had deteriorated to the point that White Whale locked the band out of the recording studio that housed all their equipment and recordings for their partially completed sixth LP, Shell Shock. The band finally was able to access their stuff only after promising to record a song called Who Ever Think That I Would Marry Margaret. The band members universally detested the tune, but the shirts at the label insisted it was hit record material. The song, of course, stiffed, but it did have an interesting B side written by lead vocalist Howard Kaylan called We Ain't Gonna Party Anymore. Although the track, originally meant for Shell Shock, is basically an antiwar song, it also served to let White Whale that the group was disbanding, and would be the last new recording by the band to appear on the White Whale label. White Whale responded by issuing a series of old Turtles album tracks as singles, but within a couple years the label itself was history.

Artist:    Procol Harum
Title:    Simple Sister
Source:    LP: Best of Procol Harum (originally released on LP: Broken Barricades)
Writer:    Brooker/Reid
Label:    A&M
Year:    1971
    By 1971 serious creative differences had developed between keyboardist/vocalist Gary Brooker and lead guitarist Robin Trower. At issue was the direction the band was moving in. While Brooker wanted to continue in the progressive/classical direction the band had become known for, Trower wanted a harder-edged sound. Trower's final album as a member of Procol Harum shows the two directions often at odds with each other. One track, though, Simple Sister, managed to merge elements of both Brooker's and Trower's styles, and received a significant amount of airplay on album-oriented FM radio throughout the 1970s.

Artist:    Monkees
Title:    Pleasant Valley Sunday
Source:    CD: Nuggets-Classics From the Psychedelic 60s (originally released on LP: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD.)
Writer:    Goffin/King
Label:    Rhino
Year:    1967
    After making it a point to play their own instruments on their third LP, Headquarters, the Monkees decided to once again use studio musicians for their next album, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD. The difference was that this time the studio musicians would be recording under the supervision of the Monkees themselves rather than Don Kirschner and the array of producers he had lined up for the first two Monkees LPs. The result was an album that many critics consider the group's best effort. The only single released from the album was Pleasant Valley Sunday, a song penned by the husband and wife team of Gerry Goffin and Carole King, and backed by the band's remake of the Tommy Boyce/Bobby Hart song Words, which had been recorded the previous year by the Leaves. Although both songs ended up making the charts, it was Pleasant Valley Sunday that got the most airplay and is considered by many to be Monkees' greatest achievement.

Artist:    Monkees
Title:    I'm A Believer
Source:    CD: The Monkees' Greatest Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: More Of The Monkees)
Writer(s):    Neil Diamond
Label:    Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year:    1966
    If there was ever any such thing as a guaranteed hit record, it was I'm A Believer, a Neil Diamond tune recorded by the Monkees in 1966. Released in November as the Monkees' second single, I'm A Believer hit the #1 spot on the Billboard charts on December 31st, and remained at the top of the charts for all of January and most of February of 1967. It was also included on the album More Of The Monkees, released in January of 1967, as well as being featured on four consecutive episodes of the TV series The Monkees. 

Artist:    Monkees
Title:    Valleri
Source:    CD: Nuggets-Classics From The Psychedelic 60s (originally released on LP: The Birds, The Bees, And The Monkees)
Writer(s):    Boyce/Hart
Label:    Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year:    1968
    The last Monkees top 10 single was also Michael Nesmith's least favorite Monkees song. Valleri was a Tommy Boyce/Bobby Hart composition that the group had first recorded for the first season of their TV show in 1966. Apparently nobody was happy with the recording, however, and the song was never issed on vinyl. Two years later the song was re-recorded for the album The Birds, The Bees And The Monkees and subsequently released as a single. The flamenco-style guitar on the intro (and repeated throughout the song) was played by studio guitarist Louie Shelton, after Nesmith refused to participate in the recording.

Artist:    Who
Title:    Glow Girl
Source:    CD: The Who Sell Out (bonus track originally released on LP: Odds And Sods)
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    MCA (original label: Decca)
Year:    Recorded 1968, released 1974
    Although it was originally recorded in January of 1968, right after the release of The Who Sell Out, Glow Girl sat on the shelf as the band got to work on their 1969 rock opera Tommy. Pete Townshend, who wrote Glow Girl, was not one to abandon song ideas easily, and he adapted the final line of Glow Girl to be one of the opening lines of Tommy itself, changing the word "girl" to "boy". Glow Girl itself was finally released in 1974 on the Odds And Sods album.

Artist:    Love
Title:    Wonder People (I Do Wonder)
Source:    CD: Forever Changes (bonus track)
Writer(s):    Arthur Lee
Label:    Elektra/Rhino (bonus track)
Year:    1967
    It's not entirely clear why Wonder People (I Do Wonder) was left off Love's Forever Changes album when it was first released in 1967. It could have been for space considerations; after a certain point more music on an LP means a loss of audio quality in order to fit it all. Another, more likely, possibility is that the song itself just wasn't dark enough to be a good fit with the rest of Forever Changes. Whatever the reason, the song is now available as a bonus track on the remastered CD version of the album. It's definitely worth a listen.

Artist:    Charlatans
Title:    Alabama Bound
Source:    CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70
Writer:    trad., arr. The Charlatans
Label:    Rhino (original label: Ace/Big Beat)
Year:    Recorded 1967, released 1996
    Despite being one of the most important bands on the San Francisco scene, the Charlatans did not have much luck in the recording studio. Their first sessions were aborted, the planned LP for Kama Sutra was shelved by the label itself, and the band was overruled in their choice of songs to be released on their first (and only) single issued from the Kama Sutra sessions. In 1967, however, they did manage to get some decent tracks recorded. Unfortunately, those tracks were not released until 1996, and then only in the UK. The centerpiece of the 1967 sessions was this six-and-a-half minute long recording of a traditional tune that is generally considered to be the Charlatans' signature song: Alabama Bound.

Artist:    Sam And Dave
Title:    Soul Man
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Hayes/Porter
Label:    Stax
Year:    1967
    There were a lot of talented people involved with the making of Sam And Dave's Soul Man, including guitarist Steve Cropper, bassist Donald "Duck" Dunn, and songwriters Isaac Hayes and Darrell Porter, not to mention the Bar-Kays on horns. Although not considered "psychedelic" itself, it was still one of the anthems of the Summer of Love.

Artist:    Mommyheads
Title:    Out Of The Cave
Source:    CD: Age Of Isolation
Writer(s):    Adam Cohen
Label:    Mommyhead Music
Year:    2021
    The Mommyheads are a New York based band that has been around since the 1980s (taking the decade from 1998 to 2008 off). As of 2021, the year they released Age Of Isolation, the band consisted of drummer Dan Fisherman, bassist Jason McNair, keyboardist (and occasional guitarist) Michael Holt, and multi-instrumentalist Adam Elk, who, under his birth name of Adam Cohen writes most of the band's material, including Out Of The Cave. All members provide vocals.

Artist:    Splinter Fish
Title:    Mars
Source:    LP: Splinter Fish
Writer(s):    Chuck Hawley
Label:    StreetSound
Year:    1989
    One of my favorite bands on the late 80s Albuquerque music scene was Splinter Fish, a group that didn't quite fall naturally into any specific musical genre. They certainly had things in common with many new wave bands, but also touched on world music and even hard rock. One of their most popular tracks was Mars, which itself is hard to define, thanks to many sudden tempo and even stylistic changes, even though the entire track runs less than three minutes in length. Guitarist/vocalist Chuck Hawley now leads his own band, while fem vocalist Deb-O performs with a variety of Albuquerque musicians in several different combos.

Artist:    Squires Of The Subterrain
Title:    Admiral Albert's Apparition
Source:    CD: Pop In A CD
Writer(s):    Christopher Zajkowski
Label:    Rocket Racket
Year:    Recorded 1992, released 1998
    Based in Rochester, NY, the Squires Of The Subterrain are (is?) the work of Christopher Zajkowski of Rochester, NY, who has been releasing independent recordings on his own Rocket Racket label for the better part of 20 years. His work has elements of both Brian Wilson's Smile period and the Beatles at their most psychedelic. Admiral Albert's Apparition, recorded on 4-track equipment in 1992, combines the two quite nicely, yet has an original sound all its own.

Artist:    Blues Magoos
Title:    Tobacco Road
Source:    LP: Psychedelic Lollipop
Writer(s):    John D. Loudermilk
Label:    Mercury
Year:    1966
    For years I've been trying to find a DVD copy of a video I saw on YouTube. It was the Blues Magoos, complete with electric suits and smoke generators, performing Tobacco Road on a Bob Hope TV special. The performance itself was a vintage piece of psychedelia, but the true appeal of the video is in Hope's reaction to the band immediately following the song. You can practically hear him thinking "Well, that's one act I'm not taking with me on my next USO tour."

Artist:    Del-Vetts
Title:    Last Time Around
Source:    Mono LP: Nuggets Vol. 2-Punk (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Dennis Dahlquist
Label:    Rhino (original label: Dunwich)
Year:    1966
    The Del-Vetts were from Chicago's affluent North Shore. Their gimmick was to show up at a high school dance by driving their matching corvettes onto the gymnasium dance floor. Musically, like most garage/punk bands, they were heavily influenced by the British invasion bands. Unlike most garage/punk bands, who favored the Rolling Stones, the Del-Vetts were more into the Jeff Beck incarnation of the Yardbirds. The 'Vetts had a few regional hits from 1965-67, the biggest being this single issued on the Dunwich label, home of fellow Chicago suburbanites the Shadows of Knight. In retrospect, considering the song's subject matter (and overall loudness), Last Time Around may well be the very first death metal rock song ever recorded.

Artist:    Bob Dylan
Title:    Pledging My Time
Source:    Austrian import CD: Blonde On Blonde
Writer(s):    Bob Dylan
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    The second track from Bob Dylan's Blonde On Blonde album was Pledging My Time, a blues tune that features Robbie Robertson (who had been touring with Dylan) on guitar. The song was one of three tracks recorded in four takes in Nashville on March 8th of 1966. The song was also used as the B side of the album's first single, but was faded out about two-thirds of the way through.

Artist:    Temptations
Title:    Psychedelic Shack
Source:    45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
Writer:    Whitfield/Strong
Label:    Motown Yesteryear (original label: Gordy)
Year:    1970
    Starting in 1969 the songwriting/production team of Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong began to carve out their own company within a company at Motown, producing a series of recordings with a far more psychedelic feel than anything else coming out of the Motor City's biggest label. The most blatantly obvious example of this is the Temptations tune Psychedelic Shack, which graced the charts in 1970. Whitfield would eventually form his own company, taking another Motown act, the Undisputed Truth, with him, but would not be able to equal the success of the songs he and Strong produced for the Temptations, such as 1972's Papa Was A Rolling Stone.

Artist:    Jefferson Airplane
Title:    Chushingura
Source:    LP: Crown Of Creation
Writer(s):    Spencer Dryden
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1968
    Drummer Spencer Dryden was certainly not the most prolific songwriter in Jefferson Airplane. In fact, in terms of total output he was probably dead last, although bassist Jack Casady is not far ahead of him. However, Dryden's few contributions as a songwriter rank among the band's most innovative work. Chushingura, which closes out side one of the band's fourth LP, Crown Of Creation, is a good example of this innovation. Although the track is less than a minute and a half long, it stands as one of the earliest examples of electronic music on a rock album.

Artist:    Tommy James And The Shondells
Title:    Crimson And Clover
Source:    LP: Crimson And Clover
Writer(s):    James/Lucia
Label:    Roulette
Year:    1968
    Tommy James And The Shondells were one of the most successful singles bands in the world from 1966 through mid-1968, when they took a three month break from recording to go on tour with Hubert Humphrey's presidential campaign. During that time, James and the band came to the realization that the pop music scene was going through some major changes; in fact, the term "pop music" itself was giving way to "rock", just as the former term had supplanted the term "rock 'n' roll" in the late 1950s following the infamous payola scandal of 1959 that had destroyed the career of disc jockey Alan Freed, who had been instrumental in the popularization of rock 'n' roll in the first place. At the same time, albums were becoming more important to a band's success, a fact that was not lost on James. During their hiatus from recording the band worked on a change in style, and a marketing strategy to go with it. One of the first songs they recorded in this new style was Crimson And Clover. In November of 1968, Tommy James brought a rough mix of the song to Chicago's WLS, arguably the world's most listened to radio station at the time, and played it off the air for disc jockey Larry Lujack. Unbeknownst to James, however, Lujack had one of the station's engineers running a second tape deck in record mode, effectively making a bootleg copy of the song. As the story goes, James then left the station and got into a car that had its radio tuned to WLS, which was already playing the bootleg tape of Crimson And Clover. Although Morris Levy, the head of Roulette Records, asked WLS not to play the tape, the overwhelmingly positive response to the song caused him to change his mind and instead insist that a single be pressed using the same rough mix that WLS was playing. Tommy James was finally allowed to record a longer version of Crimson And Clover for the band's new album (also titled Crimson And Clover), but decided to use the already existing tracks and build on them rather than re-record the entire song. Unfortunately, a speed calibration issue between the original and new sections caused the song to change pitch slightly at the transition points. When Roulette reissued the single for the oldies market in the 1980s they used the LP version, complete with pitch variations.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Dandelion
Source:    LP: Through The Past, Darkly (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1967
    If there was a British equivalent to the Beach Boys' Good Vibrations in terms of time and money spent on a single song, it might be We Love You, a 1967 single released by the Rolling Stones. To go along with the single (with its state-of-the-art production) the band spent a considerable sum making a full-color promotional video, a practice that would not become commonplace until the advent of MTV in the 1980s. Despite all this, US radio stations virtually ignored We Love You, choosing to instead flip the record over and play the B side, a tune called Dandelion. As to why this came about, I suspect that Bill Drake, the man behind the nation's most influential top 40 stations, simply decided that the less elaborately produced Dandelion was better suited to the US market than We Love You and instructed his hand-picked program directors at such stations as WABC, KHJ and WLS to play Dandelion. The copycat nature of top 40 radio being what it is, Dandelion ended up being a moderate hit in the US in the summer of '67.

Artist:     Rolling Stones
Title:     Hitch Hike
Source:     Mono CD: Out of Our Heads
Writer(s):    Gaye/Paul/Stevenson
Label:     Abkco (original label: London)
Year:     1965
     The Rolling Stones' early albums consisted of about a 50/50 mix of cover tunes and original tunes from the band members, primarily Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Marvin Gaye's Hitch Hike was one of the cover songs on the album Out of Our Heads, the same album that featured the #1 hit of 1965, (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    Street Fighting Man
Source:    LP: Through The Past, Darkly (originally released on LP: Beggar's Banquet)
Writer(s):    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1968
    The Rolling Stones were at a low point in their career following their most psychedelic album, Their Satanic Majesties Request, which came out in late 1967. As a response to charges in the rock press that they were no longer relevant the Stones released Jumpin' Jack Flash as a single in early 1968, following it up with the Beggar's Banquet album later in the year. The new album included the band's follow-up single, Street Fighting Man, a song that was almost as anthemic as Jumpin' Jack Flash itself and went a long ways toward insuring that the Rolling Stones would be making music on their own terms for as long as they chose to.

Artist:    Downliners Sect
Title:    Why Don't You Smile Now
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets II-Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 (originally released on LP: The Rock Sect's In)
Writer(s):    Philips/Vance/Reed/Cale
Label:    Rhino (original label: Columbia UK)
Year:    1966
    The Downliners Sect was one of the more unusual British bands of the mid-sixties, with a penchant for choosing unconventional material to record. Their second LP, for instance, was made up of covers of songs originally recorded by US Country and Western artists. Their third LP, The Rock Sect's In, was (as the title implies) more of a straight rock album than their previous efforts. Still, they managed to find unique material to record, such as Why Don't You Smile Now, a song chosen from a stack of producers' demos from the US. Although nobody seems to know who Philips or Vance were, the Reed and Cale in the songwriting credits were none other than Lou and John, in a pre-Velvet Underground incarnation.

Artist:    Traffic
Title:    Heaven Is In Your Mind
Source:    LP: Best Of Traffic (originally released in US on LP: Heaven Is In Your Mind)
Writer(s):    Winwood/Capaldi/Wood
Label:    United Artists
Year:    1967
    For a time in the mid-1960s recording artists would actually make two mixes of each song on their albums, one in monoraul and one in stereo. Often the monoraul mix would have a brighter sound, as those mixes were usually made with AM radio's technical limitations in mind. In rare cases, the differences would be even more pronounced. Such is the case with Traffic's first LP, Mr. Fantasy. The two versions of Heaven Is In Your Mind differ not only in their mix but in the actual recording, as the mono mix features an entirely different guitar solo than the more familiar stereo mix heard here.

Artist:    West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
Title:    A Child's Guide To Good And Evil
Source:    CD: Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil
Writer(s):    Markley/Harris
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    If there was ever a band that illustrated just how bizarre the late 60s could be, it was the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. Formed at a party (hosted by the ubiquitous Kim Fowley) by the sons of a noted orchestra conductor and a borderline pedophile with lots of money to burn, the band also included a talented but troubled lead guitarist from Denver and a multi-instrumentalist who would go on to become a highly successful record producer. As would be expected with such a disparate group, several members ended up quitting during the band's run; strangely enough, they all ended up returning to the band at one time or another. Their music was just as strange as their story, as the title track of their fourth album, Volume III-A Child's Guide To Good And Evil, illustrates vividly. Musically the song is powerful, almost anthemic, creating a mood that is immediately destroyed by a spoken bit (I hesitate to use the term "poetry") by the aforementioned borderline pedophile, Bob Markley, against a backdrop of a more subdued musical bed with background vocals somewhat resembling Gregorian chant. And just what words of wisdom does Markley have to share with us? Let me give you a small sample: "a vampire bat will suck blood from our hands, a dog with rabies will bite us, rats will run up your legs, but nothing will matter." Perhaps the most bizarre aspect of the whole thing is that the piece was created without benefit of drugs, as all the members of the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band (except for lead guitarist Ron Morgan) were notoriously drug-free, itself the exception rather than the rule in late 60s Hollywood. Oddly enough, in spite of this (or maybe because of it), the track is actually quite fun to listen to. Besides, it only lasts two minutes and twenty seconds.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2238 (starts 9/12/22)

https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/438317-pe-2238

    Over half of the tunes on this week's edition of Stuck in the Psychedelic Era were released in 1967, including a couple of tracks we've never played before that feature guitarists that would later become quite famous. Also in the bill, a set of Beatles tunes made around the same time as the band was forming Apple Corps that became some of the earliest releases on the label.

Artist:    Rolling Stones
Title:    We Love You
Source:    45 RPM single (stereo reissue)
Writer:    Jagger/Richards
Label:    London
Year:    1967
    We Love You was, upon its release in the summer of 1967, the most expensive Rolling Stones record ever produced (as well as the last Rolling Stones record to be produced by Andrew Loog Oldham), and included a promotional film that is considered a forerunner of the modern music video. We Love You did well in the UK, reaching the # 8 spot on the charts, but it was the other side of the record, Dandelion, that ended up being a hit in the US. The song was dismissed at the time by John Lennon, who referred to it as the Stones' answer to All We Need Is Love, but in retrospect the song is now seen as a tongue-in-cheek response to the ongoing harassment of the band by law enforcement authorities at the time.

Artist:     Cream
Title:     SWLABR
Source:     CD: Disraeli Gears (also released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Bruce/Brown
Label:     Polydor (original label: Atco)
    Year: 1967
    I distinctly remember this song getting played on the local jukebox just as much as the single's A side, Sunshine Of Your Love (maybe even more). Like most of Cream's more psychedelic material, SWLABR (an anagram for She Was Like A Bearded Rainbow) was written by the songwriting team of Jack Bruce and Pete Brown. Brown had originally been brought in as a co-writer for Ginger Baker, but soon realized that he and Bruce had better songwriting chemistry.

Artist:    Grateful Dead
Title:    Cream Puff War
Source:    CD: The Grateful Dead
Writer(s):    Jerry Garcia
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1967
    The first Grateful Dead album was recorded in a matter of days, and was mostly made up of cover tunes that the band was currently performing. The two exceptions were The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion), which was credited to the entire band, and Cream Puff War, a song written by guitarist Jerry Garcia. The two tracks were paired up on the band's first single as well. Cream Puff War, as recorded, ran nearly three and a half minutes, but was edited down to 2:28 at the insistence of the corporate shirts at Warner Brothers Records.

Artist:    Seeds
Title:    Excuse, Excuse
Source:    LP: The Seeds (originally released in France on EP: The Seeds Avec Sky Saxon)
Writer(s):    Sky Saxon
Label:    GNP Crescendo
Year:    1965
    Although they branded themselves as the original flower power band, the Seeds have a legitimate claim to being one of the first punk-rock bands as well. A prime example is Excuse, Excuse. Whereas a more conventional song of the time might have been an angst-ridden tale of worry that perhaps the girl in question did not return the singer's feelings, Sky Saxon's lyrics (delivered with a sneer that would do Johnny Rotten proud) are instead a scathing condemnation of said girl for not being straight up honest about the whole thing. Excuse, Excuse was first released in late 1965 in France on an EP called The Seeds Avec Sky Saxon. The EP also included the band's debut single, Can't Seem To Make You Mine and its original B side, Daisy Mae, along with No Escape! All but Daisy Mae would be included on the band's self-titled debut LP the following April.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Rosy Won't You Please Come Home
Source:    Mono LP: Face To Face
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1966
    The Davies were a close-knit family living in Muswell Hill, North London in the mid-20th century. Close enough, in fact, for two of the family members, Ray and Dave, to form (with fellow Muswell Hill resident Peter Quaife) their own rock band in the 1960s. That band, the Kinks, became one of the most popular and influential bands of the British Invasion. In 1964 a third family member, Rosy, moved to Australia with her husband Arthur, which devastated brother Ray to the point that he, in his own words "collapsed in a heap on the sandy beach and wept like a pathetic child" on the day that they left. Two years later the Kinks recorded Rosy Won't You Please Come Home and included it on the album Face To Face. When that didn't work they tried an entire album: Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) in 1969.

Artist:    Kim Fowley
Title:    Strangers From The Sky
Source:    Mono British import CD: My Mind Goes High (originally released in US as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Fowley/Lloyd
Label:    Warner Strategic Marketing (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1967
    The 1960s Los Angeles music scene contained more than its share of colorful characters, so it takes quite a bit to stand out from even that group. Kim Fowley, however, definitely fits the bill, as he is more than willing to tell anyone who will listen. His first claim to fame is being the voice of the Hollywood Argyles, a studio concoction that had a huge hit with the novelty song Alley Oop in the early 1960s. Fowley met prodigy Michael Lloyd when Lloyd was only 13, and immediately recognized his potential. In late 1966 he was instrumental in hooking Lloyd up with the Harris brothers and local hipster Bob Markley, who together formed the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. It was while a member of the WCPAEB that Lloyd produced Fowley's Strangers From The Sky, recorded in Lloyd's own home 4-track studio with Lloyd playing all the instruments himself. In it's own way, Strangers From The Sky is every bit as bizarre as Alley Oop, although nowhere near as successful on the charts. Lloyd went on to become a big-time record producer, working with teen idols like the Osmonds and Shaun Cassidy as well as supervising the Dirty Dancing soundtrack. Fowley continued to make his presence felt in both L.A. and London in several roles, including songwriter, producer and being the MC at the Toronto Rock And Roll Revival in 1969 (where he successfully pushed to get the Plastic Ono Band on the playbill). He famously introduced Sandy West to Joan Jett in the mid-1970s, which eventually led to the formation of the Runaways.
        
Artist:    Del Shannon
Title:    I Think I Love You
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released on LP: The Further Adventures Of Charles Westover)
Writer(s):    Del Shannon
Label:    Rhino (original label: Liberty)
Year:    1968
    Del Shannon? The guy who did Runaway back in '62? Yep. Also the same Del Shannon who Tom Petty has acknowledged as his number one inspiration and who was on the verge of being asked to replace the late Roy Orbison in the Traveling Wilburys when he himself became the late Del Shannon. Unlike many of his early 60s contemporaries such as Bobby Vee or Fabian, Shannon was able to keep up with the times, as this piece of pure psychedelia (penned by Shannon himself) from the album The Further Adventures of Charles Westover demonstrates.

Artist:     Vanilla Fudge
Title:     You Keep Me Hangin' On (includes Illusions Of My Childhood part one and two)
Source:     Mono LP: Vanilla Fudge
Writer(s):     Holland/Dozier/Holland
Label:     Atco
Year:     1967
     The Vanilla Fudge version of You Keep Me Hangin' On was originally recorded and released in 1967, not too long after the Supremes version of the song finished its own run on the charts. It wasn't until the following year, however, the the Vanilla Fudge recording caught on with radio listeners, turning it into the band's only top 40 hit. The original album version was considerably longer than the single, however, due in part to the inclusion of a framing sequence called Illusions Of My Childhood (basically a series of short psychedelic instrumental pieces incorporating themes from familiar nursery rhymes such as Farmer In The Dell and Ring Around The Rosie). You Keep Me Hangin' On was originally mixed only in mono as a kind of audition tape for the band. Rather than re-record the song for their debut LP, the band chose to use that original mono mix.

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 (later) 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:     Monkees
Title:     Randy Scouse Git
Source:     CD: Headquarters
Writer:     Barry/Sager
Label:     Rhino (original label: Colgems)
Year:     1967
     The original concept for the Monkees TV series was that the band would be shown performing two new songs on each weekly episodes. This meant that, even for an initial 13-week order, 26 songs would have to be recorded in a very short amount of time. The only way to meet that deadline was for several teams of producers, songwriters and studio musicians to work independently of each other at the same time. The instrumental tracks were then submitted to musical director Don Kirschner, who brought in Mickey Dolenz, Davy Jones, Peter Tork and Michael Nesmith to record vocal tracks. Although some of the instrumental tracks, such as those produced by Nesmith, had Nesmith and Tork playing on them, most did not. Some backing tracks were even recorded in New York at the same time as the TV show was being taped in L.A. In a few cases, the Monkees themselves did not hear the songs until they were in the studio to record their vocal tracks. A dozen of these recordings were chosen for release on the first Monkees LP in 1966, including the hit single Last Train To Clarksville. When it became clear that the show was a hit and a full season's worth of episodes would be needed, Kirschner commissioned even more new songs (although by then Clarksville was being featured in nearly every episode, mitigating the need for new songs somewhat). Without the band's knowledge Kirschner issued a second album, More Of The Monkees, in early 1967, using several of the songs recorded specifically for the TV show. The Monkees themselves were furious, and the subsequent firestorm resulted in the removal of Kirschner from the entire Monkees project. The group then hired Turtles bassist Chip Douglas to work with the band to produce an album of songs that the Monkees themselves would both sing and play on. The album, Headquarters, spent one week at the top of the charts before giving way to the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. There were, however, no singles released from the album; at least not in the US. It turns out that the seemingly nonsensical title of the album's final track, Randy Scouse Git, was actually British slang for "horny guy from Liverpool", or something along those lines. The song was released as a single everywhere but the Western Hemisphere under the name Alternate Title and was a surprise worldwide hit.

Artist:    Tomorrow
Title:    The Incredible Journey Of Timothy Chase
Source:    Mono British import CD: Tomorrow
Writer(s):    Keith Hopkins
Label:    Parlophone
Year:    1967
    Originally formed as Four Plus One, and later The In Crowd, Tomorrow consisted of vocalist Keith West (born Keith Hopkins), guitarist Steve Howe, bassist Junior Wood and drummer Twink Alder. Despite being one of the first psychedelic bands to grace London's legendary UFO club and being featured on John Peel's Perfumed Garden radio show, Tomorrow was never a commercial success. One of the main reasons for this was West's decision to work with Mark Wirtz on a side project called A Teenage Opera which resulted in West having a hit single as a solo artist. This actually hurt the band, as promoters insisted on billing the band as Tomorrow featuring Keith West, which didn't sit to well with the other members. They did manage to record and release a self-titled album in 1968, but it did not sell well and was quickly relegated to the cut-out bins. Most of the band members themselves fared quite a bit better with Twink going on the join the Pretty Things and later found the Pink Fairies and Howe becoming a member of Yes, turning that band into a major success.

Artist:    Donovan
Title:    The Observation
Source:    Mono British import CD: Mellow Yellow
Writer(s):    Donovan Leitch
Label:    EMI (original label: Epic)
Year:    1967
    Donovan was at first hailed as Britain's answer to Bob Dylan, but by 1967 he was proving that he was much more than that. The Observation is one of many innovative tunes that helped redefine Donovan from folk singer to singer/songwriter, transforming the entire genre in the process.

Artist:    Butch Engle And The Styx
Title:    Hey, I'm Lost
Source:    Mono CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Elliott/Durand
Label:    Rhino (original label: Onyx)
Year:    1967
    In 1966 a local San Francisco department store held a battle of the bands at the Cow Palace. Unlike most events in the city that year, this one did not tie in to the emerging hippie culture. Rather, the event drew bands that were in their element when playing high school dances and teen clubs (although the decidedly hippie Charlatans did make an appearance). The winners of that battle were Butch Engle and the Styx. Eighteen months later Hey, I'm Lost, their only single, appeared on the Onyx label and was distributed throughout the bay area.

Artist:    Whatt Four
Title:    You're Wishin' I Was Someone Else
Source:    Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Sanders/Johnson
Label:    Rhino (original label: Mercury)
Year:    1967
    By 1967 Mercury Records had long since moved beyond its roots as a regional Chicago label. In fact, Mercury, along with Capitol, Columbia, M-G-M, Decca and RCA Victor, was one of the "Big Six" record labels of the time, so called because between them they owned nearly all of the major record pressing plants in the country. It was really no surprise, then, to see Mercury signing local acts and releasing the records regionally in other parts of the country as well as Chicago. One such act was Riverside, California's Whatt Four, who took their shot at the brass ring in 1967 with a song called You're Wishin' I Was Someone Else.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Why (RCA Studios version)
Source:    CD: Fifth Dimension (bonus track)
Writer(s):    McGuinn/Crosby
Label:    Columbia/Legacy
Year:    Recorded 1965, released 1996
    One of the highlights of the Byrds' Younger Than Yesterday album, released in early 1967, was a song co-written by David Crosby and Jim (Roger) McGuinn called Why. Many of the band's fans already knew that a different version of the song had already been released as the B side of Eight Miles High the previous year. What was not as well-known, however, was that both songs had been first recorded at the RCA Studios in Burbank in December of 1965, but rejected by Columbia due to their being produced at studios owned by a hated competitor. Crosby has since said that he prefers the RCA recordings to the later ones made at Columbia's own studios, calling it "stronger...with a lot more flow to it".
 
Artist:     Sparkles
Title:     No Friend of Mine
Source:     Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era (originally released as a 45 RPM single)
Writer(s)    Turnbow/Parks
Label:     Rhino (original label: Hickory)
Year:     1967
     It shouldn't come as a surprise that the state of Texas would produce its share of garage/psychedelic bands. After all, the place used to be a medium-sized country. In fact, one of the first bands to actually use the word psychedelic in an album title was the 13th Floor Elevators out of Austin. The Sparkles hailed from a different part of the state, one known for its high school football teams as much as anything else: West Texas. Recorded in Big Spring, No Friend of Mine was one of a series of regional hits for the Sparkles that got significant airplay in cities like Midland, Odessa and Monahans. 

Artist:    Chocolate Watchband
Title:    In The Midnight Hour
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Pickett/Cropper
Label:    Tower
Year:    Recorded 1966, released 2012
    Among the many Chocolate Watchband recordings that were subjected to major changes by producer Ed Cobb was a cover of Wilson Pickett's R&B classic In The Midnight Hour, a song that was also covered by the Young Rascals. The biggest change Cobb made to the recording was to replace Dave Aguilar's original lead vocals with those of studio vocalist Don Bennett. Once Sundazed got the rights to the Watchband's recordings they included both versions on their CD version of the No Way Out album and in 2012 issued the mono mix of the Aguilar version for the first time as a single.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Revolution 1
Source:    CD: The Beatles
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Parlophone (original label: Apple)
Year:    1968
    The Beatles' Revolution has a somewhat convoluted history. The song, the first album track to be recorded for the band's own Apple label, was over eight minutes long and included what eventually became Revolution 1 and part of Revolution 9. The song's writer, John Lennon, at some point decided to separate the sections into two distinct tracks, both of which ended up on the Beatles self-titled double LP (aka the White Album). Lennon wanted to release Revolution 1 as a single, but was voted down by both George Harrison and Paul McCartney on the grounds that the song's tempo was too slow. Lennon then came up with a faster version of the song, which ended up being released a few weeks before the album came out as the B side to the band's 1968 single Hey Jude. As a result, many of the band's fans erroneously assumed that Revolution 1 was the newer version of the song.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Hey Jude
Source:    CD: Past Masters-vol. 2 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Apple/Parlophone
Year:    1968
    Without a question, the biggest hit the Beatles ever had was Hey Jude. The song spent nineteen weeks on the charts, nine of them in the number one spot, making it the most popular song of 1968. It was also the first single released on the Apple label, and became the biggest-selling debut release for a record label in history, topping the charts in eleven countries. At over seven minutes in length, it held the record for longest-playing number one hit for 25 years. Hey Jude is also the most popular bar song in mid-world, as described in Stephen King's Dark Tower books. No wonder Paul McCartney still performs the song regularly.

Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Long, Long, Long
Source:    CD: The Beatles
Writer(s):    George Harrison
Label:    Parlophone (original label: Apple)
Year:    1968
    Written while the Beatles were in India studying Transcendental Meditiation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Long, Long, Long is one of four George Harrison compositions on the 1968 double LP The Beatles (aka the White Album). Of the four, Long, Long, Long is the most indicative of the direction Harrison's songwriting would take over the next few years, culminating with his three-disc box set, All Things Must Pass. The arrangement is sparse and the lyrics are deeply spiritual, yet open to interpretation. Harrison himself confirmed that the "you" in the lyrics refers to God rather than a specific person. Long, Long, Long is also one of the quietest Beatle songs ever recorded, standing in stark contrast to Helter Skelter, which precedes it on the album.

Artist:    Mad River
Title:    Wind Chimes
Source:    Mono British import CD: The Berkeley EPs (originally released as 7" 33 1/3 RPM Extended Play mini-album)
Writer(s):    Mad River
Label:    Big Beat (original label: Wee)
Year:    1967
    Unlike most San Francisco Bay Area bands of the mid to late 1960s, Mad River was already a functioning band when they arrived on the scene from their native Ohio in 1967. The group, consisting of Lawrence Hammond (vocals, bass), David Robinson (guitar), Rick Bockner (guitar) and Greg Dewey (drums, vocals), had been formed in 1965 as the Mad River Blues Band in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where all of the members were attending college. By the time they relocated to Berkeley in early 1967 they had developed a unique style of their own. Once in Berkeley, the band quickly established themselves as one of the most "underground" bands in the area, often appearing on the bill with Country Joe And The Fish. In fact, it was the latter band that inspired Mad River to record an EP later that year. Following an unsuccessful audition for Fantasy Records, Mad River cut a three-song EP for the small Wee label. The entire second side of the disc was a six and a half minute long piece called Wind Chimes. The band later recut the track for their first full-length album (on Capitol) the following year.

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    Happy Together
Source:    CD: Billboard Top Rock 'N' Roll Hits-1967 (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Happy Together)
Writer(s):    Bonner/Gordon
Label:    Rhino (original label: White Whale)
Year:    1967
    The Turtles got off to a strong start with their cover of Bob Dylan's It Ain't Me Babe, which hit the top 20 in 1965. By early 1967, however, the band had fallen on hard times and was looking for a way to return to the charts. They found that way with Happy Together, a song written by Gary Bonner and Mark Gordon, both members of an east coast band called the Magicians. Happy Together was the Turtles' first international hit, going all the way to the top of the charts in several countries and becoming one of the most recognizable songs in the history of popular music.

Artist:    Sound Sandwich
Title:    Apothecary Dream
Source:    Mono LP: Ain't It Hard (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Johnny Cole
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Viva)
Year:    1967
    One of the more successful record producers in mid-60s Los Angeles was Snuff Garrett, whose credits include hits by Gary Lewis and the Playboys, Cher and others. For a while Garrett even had his own record label. Viva Records was only around for a couple of years, but during that time they turned out some of the best-produced psychedelic records ever made. One example is 1967's Apothecary Dream, a tune written by producer Johnny Cole and performed by local L.A. band the Sound Sandwich. The band cut a second single the following January before Viva folded.

Artist:    Circus Maximus
Title:    Short-Haired Fathers
Source:    CD: Circus Maximus
Writer(s):    Bob Bruno
Label:    Vanguard
Year:    1967
    Circus Maximus was formed in Greenwich Village by guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist Bob Bruno and guitarist Jerry Jeff Walker in 1967. The group originally wanted to call itself the Lost Sea Dreamers, but changed it after the Vanguard Records expressed reservations about signing a group with the initials LSD. Of the eleven tracks on the band's debut LP, only four were written by Walker, and those were in more of a folk-rock vein. Bruno's seven tracks, on the other hand, are true gems of psychedelia, ranging from the jazz-influenced Wind to the proto-punk rocker Short-Haired Fathers. The group fell apart after only two albums, mostly due to the growing musical differences between Walker and Bruno. Walker, of course, went on to become one of the most successful songwriters of the country-rock genre. As for Bruno, he's still in New York City, concentrating more on the visual arts in recent years.

Artist:    Mitch Ryder And The Detroit Wheels
Title:    Too Many Fish In The Sea/Three Little Fishes
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Whitfield/Holland/Dowell
Label:    New Voice
Year:    1967
    Mitch Ryder (b. William Levise, Jr.) And The Detroit Wheels started off as Billy Lee And The Rivieras in the early 1960s, but decided to change their name when another group calling itself the Rivieras had a hit with a song called California Sun. They had their first hit in 1965 with Jenny Take A Ride, a song based loosely on the Little Richard hit Jenny Jenny. More hits followed, including the top 5 smash Devil With A Blue Dress On/Good Golly Miss Molly in 1966. The band's last hit was a pastiche of the Motown hit Too Many Fish In The Sea and the 1940s vintage Three Little Fishes, done up 50s rock and roll style. Not long after the record charted producer Bob Crewe convinced Ryder to quit the group and go solo, a career move that did not work out well for either Ryder or the band. (Crewe also convinced Frankie Valli to leave the 4 Seasons at around that same time, perhaps feeling that a solo artist would be easier to control than a group. Then again, maybe he was just being cheap.)

Artist:    Love
Title:    Signed D.C.
Source:    German import CD: Love
Writer(s):    Arthur Lee
Label:    Elektra/Warner Strategic Marketing
Year:    1966
    The only acoustic track on the first Love album was Signed D.C., a slow ballad in the tradition of House of the Rising Sun. The song takes the form of a letter penned by a heroin addict, and the imagery is both stark and disturbing. Although Lee was known to occasionally say otherwise, the song title probably refers to Love's original drummer Don Conka, who left the band before their first recording sessions due to (you guessed it) heroin addiction.

Artist:    John Mayall's Bluesbreakers
Title:    Driving Sideways
Source:    LP: Crusade
Writer(s):    Freddie King
Label:    London
Year:    1967
    Following the departure of Peter Green to form Fleetwood Mac in 1967, John Mayall recruited 18-year-old Mick Taylor to join his Bluesbreakers, joining a lineup that also included John McVie on bass, Keef Hartley on drums and saxophonists Chris Mercer and Rip Kant. The group recorded the entire album Crusade in one day in July, releasing the LP in both the UK and the US on September 1, 1967. Mayall would end up disbanding the Bluesbreakers after one more LP, with the various members going on to other bands while Mayall himself continued to record with a variety of musicians over a career that continues to this day.

Artist:    Procol Harum
Title:    Rambling On
Source:    LP: Shine On Brightly
Writer(s):    Brooker/Reid
Label:    A&M
Year:    1968
    Procol Harum is generally considered to be one of the first progressive rock bands, thanks in part to their second LP, Shine On Brightly. In addition to the album's showpiece, the seventeen minute In Held Twas I, the album has several memorable tracks, including Rambling On, which closes out side one of the original LP. The song's rambling first-person lyrics (none of which actually rhyme) tell the story of a guy who, inspired by a Batman movie, decides to jump off a roof and fly. Oddly enough, he succeeds.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix/Gypsy Sun & Rainbows
Title:    Fire
Source:    CD: Live At Woodstock
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    Experience Hendrix/Legacy
Year:    1969
    Despite announcing to the crowd that his stage band had had only two rehearsals and wouldn't be doing any of the "old stuff", they pulled off this blazing version of Fire about halfway through their set. I can tell you from firsthand experience that, except for the lead guitar and drum parts, Fire is a pretty easy song to learn and play along with, and since drummer Mitch Mitchell was part of the original Experience that had recorded the song in the first place, it ended up sounding pretty good.

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2238 (starts 9/12/22)

https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/438315-dc-2238 

    This week Rockin' in the Days of Confusion presents, in its entirety, Emerson, Lake & Palmer's most famous work, Karn Evil 9, along with half a dozen other tracks, including a song from a band called Lighthouse and a song called Lighthouse from an entirely different band.

Artist:    Grateful Dead
Title:    Truckin'
Source:    Mono 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    Hunter/Garcia/Lesh/Weir
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1971
    The nearest thing the Grateful Dead had to a hit single before 1986 was Truckin', a feelgood tune sung by Bob Weir from the American Beauty album. I actually have a video clip on DVD of the band doing the song live on some TV show. It is neither long nor strange.

Artist:    Iron Butterfly
Title:    Iron Butterfly Theme
Source:    LP: Evolution-The Best Of Iron Butterfly (originally released on LP: Heavy)
Writer(s):    Doug Ingle
Label:    Rhino (original label: Atco)
Year:    1968
    Although much of the material on the first Iron Butterfly album, Heavy, has a somewhat generic L.A. club sound to it, the final track, the Iron Butterfly Theme, sounds more in line with the style the band would become known for on their In-A-Gadda-Vida album a few months later.

Artist:    Led Zeppelin
Title:    I Can't Quit You Baby
Source:    CD: Led Zeppelin
Writer(s):    Willie Dixon
Label:    Atlantic
Year:    1969
    Led Zeppelin has come under fire for occassionally "borrowing" lyrics and even guitar riffs from old blues songs (never mind the fact that such "borrowing" was a common practice among the old bluesmen themselves) but at least in the case of the first Zeppelin album, full songwriting credit was given to Willie Dixon for a pair of songs, one of which was I Can't Quit You Baby. The tune was originally written for and recorded by Otis Rush in 1956 and served as the debut single of both Rush and the label it appeared on, Dixon's own Cobra Records. Rush re-recorded I Can't Quit You Baby in 1966, using a new arrangement that served as the basis for Led Zeppelin's 1969 version of the song.

Artist:    Flock
Title:    Lighthouse
Source:    British import CD: The Flock/Dinosaur Swamps (originally released in US on LP: Dinosaur Swamps)
Writer(s):    The Flock
Label:    BGO (original US label: Columbia)
Year:    1970
    The second Flock album was even more experimental than their first with tunes like Lighthouse being a sort of twisted hybrid of hard rock and even harder blues, with the band's horn section adding to the chaos.

Artist:    Lighthouse
Title:    One Fine Morning
Source:    Canadian import LP: The Best Of Lighthouse (originally released on LP: One Fine Morning)
Writer(s):    Skip Prokop
Label:    GRT
Year:    1971
    After being dropped by RCA Victor in 1970 after releasing three LPs, the Canadian band Lighthouse signed with GRT Records of Canada, also releasing their records in the US on the Evolution label, a subsidiary of Longines Symphonette. Their first album for their new label was One Fine Morning, with an edited version of the title track hitting the #2 spot on the Canadian charts and #24 in the US. Recorded in Toronto, the album was the first to feature new lead vocalist Bob McBride.

Artist:    Captain Beyond
Title:    Mesmerization Eclipse
Source:    LP: Captain Beyond
Writer(s):    Evans/Caldwell
Label:    Capricorn
Year:    1972
    In the early 1970s it was normal for three bands to be on the playbill at a rock concert. Generally the headliner was someone with a hit record currently on the charts, while the middle act was someone on the way up. The opening act was either a popular local band or, in some cases, a brand new group that had just released their first album. It was not entirely uncommon for the second act to actually get a better audience response than the headliner, especially if the headliner turned out to be a one-hit wonder with no staying power. It was extremely rare, however, for the opening act to blow both of the other two bands out of the water. In fact, I can think of only one time that happened when I was in the audience. It was 1972, and I don't even remember who the headliner was. The middle band was Jo Jo Gunne, featuring front man Jay Ferguson, formerly of Spirit. They weren't bad, although the only songs I remember them performing were Run Run Run and 99 Days. The opening act, however, totally blew me away with their outstanding musicianship and strong material. That band was Captain Beyond, formed by former members of Iron Butterfly (bassist Lee Dorman and guitarist Larry "Rhino" Reinhardt), Deep Purple (vocalist Rod Evans) and drummer Bobby Caldwell, who would eventually go on to have a moderately successful solo career. I was so impressed with their set that I went to the record store the very next day and bought their album (which has this really cool 3D cover, by the way). Mesmerization Eclipse, from that debut LP, was written by the entire band, although only Evans and Caldwell got official writing credits on the album, due to Rhino and Dorman still being under contract to Iron Butterfly at the time.
    
Artist:    Emerson, Lake And Palmer
Title:    Karn Evil 9
Source:    CD: Brain Salad Surgery
Writer(s):    Emerson/Lake/Sinfield
Label:    Rhino (original label: Manticore)
Year:    1973
    When Emerson, Lake And Palmer's Brain Salad Surgery was released on vinyl the fifth track on side one, Karn Evil 9: First Impression, was faded out at the end of side one of the album and faded back in at the beginning of side two. I always thought this was unnecessary, as they could have just as easily moved one or two of the earlier tracks on side one to the end of the album and put the entire thirteen-minute long First Impression on one side of the album and the other two Impressions on side two (especially since there is a break in the audio between the 1st and 2nd Impressions already). The result of this strange bit of mastering is that most classic rock stations only play the last four and a half minutes of Karn Evil 9: 1st Impression, despite the fact that CD versions of the album have restored the recording to one continuous piece, making it possible to play the entire nearly 30-minute long suite in its entirety. This week we do exactly that.

Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2237 (starts 9/5/22)

https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/437500-pe-2237

    It's once again that odd time of year when the calendar says it's still summer, but the thermometer is starting to say otherwise. Appropriately, we have our share of oddities on this week's Stuck in the Psychedelic Era as well, including (according to Billboard magazine) the only song with a genuine Native American chant ever to grace the Hot 100, along with several tracks that sat on the shelf for over 50 years before being released. We also have a new Advanced Psych segment unveiling yet another tune from the 21st century edition of the Electric Prunes and what has to be the strangest novelty hit of 1968, from a guy who ended up getting married on a popular TV show a year later, with 40 million people watching. We start the week off on a Satanic note...

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, (following one self-produced album) 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, and occupies the #32 spot on Rolling Stone magazine's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list.

Artist:    Everything Is Everything
Title:    Witchi Tai To
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Jim Pepper
Label:    Vanguard Apostolic
Year:    1968
    Jim Pepper was a jazz saxophonist who was a member of the Free Spirits, often credited as the band that created jazz-rock fusion. When guitarist Larry Coryell and drummer Bob Moses left the band to play with Larry Burton, the remaining members, rather than continue on with them, formed a new group called Everything Is Everything. Led by Pepper, who was Of Kaw and Creek heritage, the new band combined elements of Native American music and jazz to produce a unique hybrid. Their best-known song, Witchi Tai To, released in 1968, was derived from a peyote song of the Native American Church which Pepper had learned from his grandfather, and is credited as the only Native American chant ever to crack the Billboard Hot 100. Following the breakup of Everything Is Everything, Pepper participated in a number of projects with a wide variety of jazz notables and spent much of his career playing dates in Europe. His 1984 CD Comin' And Goin' has the distinction of being the first recording ever issued on the Rykodisc label.

Artist:    Friday's Chyld
Title:    Boys And Girls Together
Source:    Mono British import CD: Think I'm Going Weird
Writer(s):    Bob Voice
Label:    Grapefruit
Year:    Recorded 1967, released 2021
    Friday's Chyld was a trio of teenagers from the Hounslow district of West London. Led by guitarist/keyboardist/lead vocalist Dave Lambert, the group also included bassist Dick Dufall and drummer Bob Voice. They recorded a pair of tunes (one of which was called Boys And Girls Together) in 1967 under their original name before signing with Decca and rechristening themselves Fire, releasing a pair of singles in 1968. Lambert later went on to become a member of Strawbs.

Artist:    Kinks
Title:    Ev'rybody's Gonna Be Happy
Source:    Mono LP: Kinda Kinks
Writer(s):    Ray Davies
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1965
    Ev'rybody's Gonna Be Happy is perhaps recognizable from a TV commercial from a few years back (don't ask me who the ad was for, as I tend to ignore such things). The song was originally the opening track from the 1965 album Kinda Kinks, which, like most British albums of the time, had a different song lineup on its US release than the original UK version. In this case, it also had entirely different cover art, for reasons that are not entirely clear.

Artist:    Luv'd Ones
Title:    Scratchy
Source:    Mono CD: Truth Gotta Stand
Writer(s):    Christman/McPhail/Wammick
Label:    Sundazed
Year:    Recorded 1966, released 2021
    Among the many unreleased recordings made by Michigan's all-female Luv'd Ones is this cover version of a 1964 instrumental by Mississippi-born guitarist Travis Wammack. You can tell they were having fun recording this one.

Artist:    Who
Title:    Glittering Girl
Source:    LP: The Who Sell Out (bonus track)
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    Track/Polydor (original US 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. It was finally issued as a bonus track on the 1995 CD release of the album and is included on disc two of the remastered vinyl edition of the LP.
    
Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Hey Joe
Source:    LP: The Essential Jimi Hendrix Volume Two (originally released on LP: Are You Experienced?)
Writer(s):    Billy Roberts
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1966
    The first track recorded by the Jimi Hendrix Experience was Hey Joe, a song that Hendrix had seen Tim Rose perform in Greenwich Village before relocating to London to form his new band. Hendrix's version is a bit heavier than Rose's and leaves off the first verse ("where you going with that money in your hand") entirely. The song itself was copyrighted in 1962 by California folk singer Billy Roberts and a much faster version by the Leaves had hit the US charts in early 1966.

Artist:      Paul Revere and the Raiders
Title:     Kicks
Source:      Mono LP: Midnight Ride (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Mann/Weil
Label:     Columbia
Year:     1966
     Kicks may not have been the first pop song with a strong anti-drug message, but it was the first one to be a certified hit, making it to the number four spot on the US charts and hitting number one in Canada. It was also the biggest hit for Paul Revere and the Raiders until Indian Reservation went all the way to the top in both countries five years later.
    
Artist:    Count Five
Title:    Psychotic Reaction
Source:    Mono CD: The Best Of 60s Psychedelic Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ellner/Chaney/Atkinson/Byrne/Michalski
Label:    Priority (original label: Double Shot)
Year:    1966
    San Jose, California, was home to one of the most vibrant local music scenes in the late 60s, despite its relatively  small, pre-silicon valley population. One of the most popular bands on that scene was Count Five, a group of five guys who dressed like Bela Lugosi's Dracula and sounded like the Jeff Beck-era Yardbirds. Fortunately for Count Five, Jeff Beck had just left the Yardbirds when Psychotic Reaction came out, leaving a hole that the boys from San Jose were more than happy to fill.

Artist:    Mamas And The Papas
Title:    California Dreamin'
Source:    LP: 20 Golden Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    John Phillips
Label:    Dunhill
Year:    1965
    California Dreamin' was written in 1963 by John Phillips, who along with his wife Michelle was living in New York City at the time. The two of them were members of a folk group called the New Journeymen that would eventually become The Mamas And The Papas. Phillips initially gave the song to his friend Barry McGuire to record, but McGuire's version failed to chart. Not long after that McGuire introduced Philips to Lou Adler, president of Dunhill Records who quickly signed The Mamas And The Papas to a recording contract. Using the same instrumental backing track (provided by various Los Angeles studio musicians known as the Wrecking Crew), The Mamas And The Papas recorded new vocals for California Dreamin', releasing it as a single in late 1965. The song took a while to catch on, but eventually peaked in the top five nationally.

Artist:     Buffalo Springfield
Title:     Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing
Source:     CD: Retrospective (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Buffalo Springfield)
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Atco
Year:     1966
     One of the most influential folk-rock bands to come out of the L.A. scene was Buffalo Springfield. The band had several quality songwriters, including Neil Young, whose voice was deemed "too weird" by certain record company people. Thus we have Richie Furay singing a Young tune on the band's first single, Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing.
    
Artist:    Beatles
Title:    Magical Mystery Tour
Source:    LP: Magical Mystery Tour
Writer(s):    Lennon/McCartney
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1967
    1967 had been a great year for the Beatles, starting with their double-sided hit single Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane, followed by the iconic Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album and their late summer hit All You Need Is Love, with its worldwide TV debut (one of the few events of the time to utilize satellite technology). The next project, however, did not go over quite so well. It had been over two years since the group's last major movie (HELP!), and the band decided that their next film would be an exclusive for broadcast on BBC-TV. Unlike the previous two films, this new project would not follow traditional filmmaking procedures. Instead it would be a more experimental piece; a series of loosely related songs and comedy vignettes connected by a loose plot about a bus trip to the countryside. Magical Mystery Tour made its debut in early December of 1967 to overwhelmingly negative reaction by viewers and critics alike (partially because the film was shown in black and white on the tradition minded BBC-1 network; a later rebroadcast in color on BBC-2 went over much better). The songs used in the film, however, were quite popular. Since there were only six of them, far too few for a regular LP, it was decided to issue the album as a pair of 45 RPM EPs, complete with lyric sheets and booklet recounting the story from the film. The original EPs were available in both stereo and mono versions in Europe and the UK. In the US, where the six tunes were supplemented by the band's five remaining single sides from 1967 to create an LP, Magical Mystery Tour was only available in stereo. Although both the EP and LP versions have different song orders than the telefilm, all three open the same way, with the film's title song.

Artist:    Senators
Title:    Psychedelic Senate
Source:    LP: Wild In The Streets soundtrack
Writer(s):    Les Baxter
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. If you listen closely you can hear someone saying "order order" in the background.

Artist:    Locomotive
Title:    Mr. Armageddon
Source:    British import CD: Psychedelic At Abbey Road (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: We Are Everything You See)
Writer(s):    Norman Haines
Label:    EMI (original label: Parlophone)
Year:    1969
    It's probably more than appropriate that a band from Birmingham, England, home of the industrial revolution, would have a name like Locomotive. Led by vocalist/guitarist Norman Haines, the group also included Mick Taylor (trumpet), Will Madge (keyboards), Mick Hincks (bass), and Bob Lamb (drums). After making their vinyl debut on the Direction label, the band moved to the larger Parlophone, recording their only album in 1968. The album, including the single Mr. Armageddon, was released in January of 1969. Not long after the album appeared on the racks Haines disbanded Locomotive and formed the Norman Haines group.

Artist:    Donovan
Title:    Do You Hear Me Now
Source:    45 RPM single B side
Writer(s):    Bert Jansch
Label:    Hickory
Year:    1965
    In 1965 Donovan's UK label, Pye Records, released an Extended Play 45 RPM record (EP) called the Universal Soldier. The record featured four songs that were not available in any other format. EPs had been moderately successful in the US in the mid-1950s, but by 1965 had virtually disappeared from American record racks (except for children's records from companies like Disney and Peter Pan Records). Donovan's US label, Hickory Records, wanted to release the song Universal Soldier, but had no desire to release an EP. Instead they released the song as a single, with one of the other tracks from the EP, Do You Hear Me Now, as the B side. In 1971 Janus Records re-released many of Donovan's early songs, including Do You Hear Me Now, on a new set of albums. Unfortunately those LPs used the electronically reprocessed for stereo versions rather than the original mono mixes. Thanks to Paul out in Bakersfield, I now have a copy of the original mono single. Thanks, Paul!

Artist:    Turtles
Title:    It Was A Very Good Year
Source:    Mono LP: It Ain't Me Babe (also released in Canada as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ervin Drake
Label:    White Whale (Canadian label: Quality)
Year:    1965
    It Was A Very Good Year was originally written for the Kingston Trio, but it was Frank Sinatra's 1961 version of the Ervin Drake composition that made the song famous worldwide. In 1965 the Turtles, who ironically were still in their teens, recorded the song for their debut LP, It Ain't Me Babe. Surprisingly, the song was released as a single in Canada in 1966, where it made the top 10 in March of that year.

Artist:    Knickerbockers
Title:    Lies
Source:    LP: 93/KHJ Boss Goldens Volume 1 (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Randall/Charles
Label:    not on label (original label: Challenge)
Year:    1965
    A lot of people thought the song Lies was the Beatles recording under a pseudonym when it came out. It wasn't, and I can't help but wonder why anyone would have thought the Beatles had any need to record under a different name (the Knickerbockers) and release a song on a second-tier label (Challenge) in the first place, especially one that sounded so much like the Beatles. Is it a Richard Bachman kind of thing?

Artist:    Small Faces
Title:    Don't Burst My Bubble
Source:    British import CD: Ogden's Nut Gone Flake (bonus track)
Writer(s):    Marriott/Lane
Label:    Charly
Year:    Recorded 1969, released 2007
    Among the many bonus tracks on the reissued version of the Small Faces' 1968 album Ogden's Nut Gone Flake is a rather obscure song called Don't Burst My Bubble. There is no information given on the track other than the fact that it was recorded in 1969. Since lead vocalist and Don't Burst My Bubble co-writer Steve Marriott told his bandmates on New Year's Eve 1968-69 that he would be leaving the group, the song is likely to have been the last studio recording ever made by the original Small Faces. Marriott had already been helping his friend Peter Frampton form a band, and in early 1969 he became part of the group itself, which came to be known as Humble Pie.

Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    One Of These Days
Source:    CD: Meddle
Writer(s):    Waters/Wright/Gilmour/Mason
Label:    Pink Floyd Records (original label: Harvest)
Year:    1971
    In their early years Pink Floyd was a band that was talked about more than heard, at least in the US. That began to change with the release of their 1971 LP Meddle and its opening track, One Of These Days, which got a significant amount of airplay on progressive FM radio stations.
    
Artist:    Flick
Title:    The End
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM promo single
Writer(s):    Oran & Trevor Thornton
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1998
    Flick was formed in the mid-90s by the Thornton brothers, Oran and Trevor, who had been performing as an acoustic duo. The new band, which included bassist Eve Hill and drummer Paul Adam McGrath, played its first show in December of 1996 and issued its first EP the following spring. In 1998 Flick released their first full-length album on the Columbia label. One of the tracks from that album, The End, was also issued as a single on 7" 45 RPM vinyl, a relatively unusual occurence in the late 1990s.

Artist:    Stranglers
Title:    In The Shadows
Source:    Stereo British import 7" 33 1/3 RPM EP
Writer(s):    The Stranglers
Label:    Liberty
Year:    1979
    Although 7" EPs had all but disappeared in the US by the end of the 1950s, they remained a viable format in many other markets worldwide, including the UK, for many years. In fact, by the end of the 1970s the format had become a fashionable alternative to the standard 45 RPM single and 33 1/3 RPM LP, especially among punk rock and new wave bands. This gave artists the option of choosing for themselves how much music they wanted to release at a given time. In 1979, for instance, the Stranglers had four songs that they wanted to include on one record. Since trying to fit all four on a 7" disc at the standard 45 RPM speed would have meant narrowing the grooves to the point of losing audio quality, they instead opted to press the record at 33 1/3. Among the four songs is a live rendition of a song called In The Shadows which had previously been released, in its studio version, as a B side in 1977 and included on their 1978 LP Black And White.

Artist:    Electric Prunes
Title:    Devil's Candy
Source:    British import LP: Artifact
Writer(s):    Lowe/Tulin/Lewis
Label:    Heartbeat
Year:    2001
    The story of the Electric Prunes begins in Los Angeles in 1965 with a group called the Sanctions. Like most Southern California bands of the time, the Sanctions' repertoire was mostly covers of popular (and danceable) tunes like Money (That's What I Want), Love Potion # 9 and of course Louie Louie, all of which the band recorded at a home studio owned by Russ Bottomly in March of 1965. At that point in time, the Sanctions were a quartet consisting of James Lowe (vocals), Mark Tulin (bass), Ken Williams (guitar) and Michael "Quint" Weakley (drums). Early in 1966 they came to the attention of Dave Hassinger, who had just finished working with the Rolling Stones, putting the finishing touches on the Aftermath album, and was eager to try his hand at being a producer. He convinced the band that they needed a new name, and eventually the group came up with the name Electric Prunes, which they felt was so far out of the ordinary that people were bound to remember it.
    Even though their first single (a cover of the Gypsy Trips' Ain't It Hard) stiffed, the people at Reprise Records signed the Prunes to a rather onerous contract that left Hassinger firmly in control of virtually everything to come out of a recording studio with the name Electric Prunes on it. At first this was fine with the band (who had just replaced Weakley with Preston Ritter and added James "Weasel" Spagnola as a second guitarist), as they and Hassinger worked well together on the hit single I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night). But it soon became obvious that Hassinger and the band itself had different priorities. Lowe and Tulin had been busy writing songs, yet only two of their compositions ended up on the band's 1967 debut LP. The majority of the songs on the album came from outside songwriters, with Annette Tucker's name in particular appearing on more tracks than anyone else's.
    The album provided the band with a second top 40 single, Get Me To The World On Time (like I Had Too Much To Dream, penned by Tucker), which in turn became a factor in the band being given a little more creative freedom for their second LP, Underground (although the fact that Hassinger's attention was divided between the Electric Prunes and a second band he was producing that summer, a San Francisco group called the Grateful Dead, was probably an even greater factor). This greater freedom resulted in an album that included seven original tunes among the twelve tracks, including the European hit single Long Day's Flight, which was co-written by Weakley, who had returned to the group in time to appear on five songs on the LP.
    The lack of a solid hit single on the album, however, led to Hassinger becoming rather heavy-handed with the group in 1968, possibly due to his frustration with the Grateful Dead that led to his resigning as that band's producer midway through their second LP, Anthem Of The Sun. The Electric Prunes did manage to record one final single, Lowe and Tulin's Everybody Knows You're Not In Love, before Hassinger came up with the idea of the band recording a concept album written by David Axelrod called Mass In F Minor. The band played on three tracks on the Mass, but Hassinger, frustrated by the members' slow pace in learning the material, brought in a Canadian band called the Collectors to finish the project. Although Lowe, Tulin and Weakley did end up making contributions to every track on the album, it had become clear that the Electric Prunes were no longer in control of their own destiny, and after a disastrous attempt to perform the Mass with a full orchestra at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, both Lowe and Weakley left the group. Tulin and Williams stayed around long enough to complete the band's current tour with a patched together lineup that included Kenny Loggins and Jeremy Stuart (of Chad & Jeremy), but by mid-1968 all the original Electric Prunes members were gone.
    Two more LPs and an assortment of singles later, the group Hassinger was still calling the Electric Prunes officially disbanded in 1970. Hardly anyone noticed. That wasn't the end of the story, however. Thanks in part to Lenny Kaye, who included I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) on the 1972 Nuggets compilation album that collected some of the best tracks of the psychedelic era on a double LP, interest in the music of the original Electric Prunes began to take root, eventually leading to both of the original band's albums being reissued in Europe in the 1980s. In the late 1990s rumors began circulating that the original group had begun to work on new material. Then, in Y2K, both original albums were issued in the US on compact disc, with the two non-album singles included as bonus tracks (it was these reissues, in fact, that helped convince me that creating a show called Stuck in the Psychedelic Era was a viable idea).
    Finally, in 2001, the album Artifact appeared on the band's own PruneTwang label in the US, with a truncated version appearing in the UK on vinyl (on the Heartbeat label) the following year. The core members of the band, James Lowe, Mark Tulin and Ken Williams, were joined by guitarist Mark Moulin, keyboardist Cameron Lowe and drummer Joe Dooley for the album, supplemented by guest appearances from former Moby Grape guitarist Peter Lewis, dotarist Jim Gripps, drummer Mike Vasquez and a special guest appearance by original drummer Michael "Quint" Weakley. The presence of such original Lowe/Tulin tunes as Devil's Candy shows that the band was by no means going the nostalgia route; rather, they referred to Artifact as "the real third album that we never got to make." They have since released three more studio albums, as well as one live album (recorded in 2007) and a kind of hybrid CD called California '66 made to promote a 2009 East Coast tour that never happened, that would have featured the Electric Prunes, Sky Saxon (whose death prompted the tour's cancellation) and Arthur Lee's 21st century version of Love.

Artist:    Animals
Title:    We Gotta Get Out Of This Place (US version)
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Mann/Weil
Label:    M-G-M
Year:    1965
    In 1965 producer Mickey Most put out a call to Don Kirschner's Brill building songwriters for material that could be recorded by the Animals. He ended up selecting three songs, all of which are among the Animals' most popular singles. Possibly the best-known of the three is a song written by the husband and wife team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil called We Gotta Get Out Of This Place. The song (the first Animals recording to featuring Dave Rowberry, who had replaced founder Alan Price on organ) starts off with what is probably Chas Chandler's best known bass line, slowly adding drums, vocals, guitar and finally keyboards on its way to an explosive chorus. The song was not originally intended for the Animals, however; it was written for the Righteous Brothers as a follow up to (You've Got That) Lovin' Feelin', which Mann and Weil had also provided for the duo. Mann, however, decided to record the song himself, but the Animals managed to get their version out first, taking it to the top 20 in the US and the top 5 in the UK. As the Vietnam war escalated, We Gotta Get Out Of This Place became a sort of underground anthem for US servicemen stationed in South Vietnam, and has been associated with that war ever since. Incidentally, there were actually two versions of We Gotta Get Out Of This Place recorded during the same recording session, with an alternate take accidentally being sent to M-G-M and subsequently being released as the US version of the single. This version (which some collectors and fans maintain has a stronger vocal track) appeared on the US-only LP Animal Tracks in the fall of 1965 as well as the original M-G-M pressings of the 1966 album Best Of The Animals. The original UK version, on the other hand, did not appear on any albums, as was common for British singles in the 1960s. By the 1980s record mogul Allen Klein had control of the original Animals' entire catalog, and decreed that all CD reissues of the song would use the original British version of the song, including the updated (and expanded) CD version of The Best Of The Animals. This expanded version of the album first appeared on the ABKCO label in 1973, but with the American, rather than the British, version of We Gotta Get Out Of This Place. With all this in mind, I looked for, and finally found, a copy of the original US single.

Artist:    Cream
Title:    Spoonful
Source:    British import LP: Cream (reissue of LP: Fresh Cream with bonus tracks)(song originally released in US as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Willie Dixon
Label:    Polydor (original US label: Atco)
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 original studio version of Willie Dixon's Spoonful. Instead the song was released on two sides of a single in 1967, with 90 seconds removed from the song between parts one and two. The single never charted and now is somewhat difficult to find a copy of (not that anybody would want to). A live version of Spoonful was included on the LP Wheels of Fire, but it wasn't until the 1969 compilation album Best Of Cream that the uncut studio version was finally released in the US.

Artist:    Doors
Title:    Strange Days
Source:    LP: Strange Days
Writer(s):    The Doors
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1967
    One of the first rock albums to not picture the band members on the front cover was the Doors' second LP, Strange Days. Instead, the cover featured several circus performers doing various tricks on a city street, with the band's logo appearing on a poster on the wall of a building. The album itself contains some of the Doors' most memorable tracks, including the title song, which also appears on their greatest hits album despite never being released as a single.

Artist:    Tiny Tim
Title:    Tip-Toe Thru The Tulips With Me
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer:    Dubin/Burke
Label:    Reprise
    I don't even know where to begin with this one.

Artist:    Merrell Fankhauser And (His Trusty) HMS Bounty
Title:    A Visit With Ayshia
Source:    CD: Things
Writer(s):    Merrell Fankhauser
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Shamley)
Year:    1968
    Merrill Fankhauser first started playing guitar shortly after moving to San Luis Obispo, California in his teens. By 1960 he had become proficient enough to join a local band, the Impacts, as lead guitarist. In 1962 the Impacts got what they thought was a lucky break, but that turned out to be a classic example of people in the music business taking advantage of young, naive musicians. Following a successful gig at a place called the Rose Garden Ballroom they were approached by a guy named Norman Knowles, who played saxophone with a band called the Revels. Knowles convinced the Impacts to record an album's worth of material at Tony Hilder at Hilder's backyard studio in the Hollywood area. The two of them then took the recordings to Bob Keene, who issued them on his own Del-Fi label. It is not known how much money Knowles and Hilder made on the deal, but the Impacts never saw a penny of it, having signed a contract giving the band the grand total of one US dollar. Not long after the incident Fankhauser left the Impacts to move to Lancaster, Calfornia, where he formed a new band, the Exiles, in 1964. The Exiles had some regional success with a song called Can't We Get Along before breaking up, with Fankhauser returning to the coast to form his own band, Merrell and the Xiles. This band had a minor hit with a song called Tomorrow's Girl in 1967, leading to an album issued under the name Fapardokly (a mashup of band members' Fankhauser, Parrish, Dodd and Lee's last names). Fankhauser and Dodd then formed another band called Merrell Fankhauser And (His Trusty) HMS Bounty, which landed a contract with Uni Records (the label that would became MCA), issuing a self-titled album in 1968. This album was even more psychedelic than Fapardokly, as can be heard on A Visit With Ayshia. Fankhauser has been involved with several other projects since then, including a band called Mu in the early 1970s and, more recently the Fankhauser Cassidy band with drummer Ed Cassidy from Spirit. His latest project is an MP3 album called Signals From Malibu, released in 2015.

Artist:    Spirit
Title:    Girl In Your Eye
Source:    CD: Spirit
Writer(s):    Jay Ferguson
Label:    Ode/Epic/Legacy
Year:    1968
    Spirit was born in 1965 when drummer Ed Cassidy left the Rising Sons after breaking his arm and settled down with his new wife, who had a teenaged son named Randy. It wasn't long before Ed and Randy (who played guitar) formed a new band called the Red Roosters. The group lasted until the spring of 1966, when the family moved to New York for a few months, and Randy met an up and coming guitarist named James Marshall Hendrix. Hendrix was impressed with the teenaged Cassidy (whom he nicknamed Randy California) and invited him to become a member of his band, Jimmy James And The Blue Flames, that was performing regularly in Greenwich Village that summer.  After being denied permission to accompany Hendrix to London that fall, Randy returned with his family to California, where he soon ran into two of his Red Roosters bandmates, singer Jay Ferguson and bassist Mark Andes. The three of them decided to form a new band with Ed Cassidy and keyboardist John Locke. Both Cassidy and Locke had played in jazz bands, and the new band, Spirit, incorporated both rock and jazz elements into their sound. Most of the songs of the band's 1968 debut album were written by Ferguson, who tended to favor a softer sound on tracks like Girl In Your Eye. On later albums Randy California would take a greater share in the songwriting, eventually becoming the de facto leader of Spirit following the departure of Ferguson and Andes to form Jo Jo Gunne.

Artist:     Blues Project
Title:     Caress Me Baby
Source:     Mono CD: Projections
Writer:     Jimmy Reed
Label:     Sundazed (original label: Verve Folkways)
Year:     1966
     After deliberately truncating their extended jams for their first LP, Live At The Cafe Au-Go-Go, the Blues Project recorded a second album that was a much more accurate representation of what the band was all about. Mixed in with the group's original material was this outstanding cover of Caress Me Baby, an old Jimmy Reed tune sung by lead guitarist and Blues Project founder Danny Kalb that runs over seven minutes in length. Andy Kuhlberg's memorable walking bass line would be lifted a few year later by Blood, Sweat and Tears bassist Jim Fielder for the track Blues, Part II.

Artist:    First Edition
Title:    Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)
Source:    LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released on LP: The First Edition and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Mickey Newbury
Label:    Rhino (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1968
    In 1968, former New Christy Mistrels members Kenny Rogers and Mike Settle decided to form a psychedelic rock band, the First Edition. Although Settle was the official leader on the first album, it was Rogers who would emerge as the star of the band, even to the point of eventually changing the band's name to Kenny Rogers and the First Edition. That change reflected a shift from psychedelic folk-rock to country flavored pop that would eventually propel Rogers to superstar status.

Artist:    Quicksilver Messenger Service
Title:    Codine
Source:    CD: Quicksilver Messenger Service (originally released on LP: Revolution soundtrack)
Writer(s):    Buffy Sainte-Marie
Label:    Rock Beat (original label: United Artists)
Year:    1968
    Buffy St. Marie's Codine was a popular favorite among the club crowd in mid-60s California. In 1967, L.A.'s Leaves included it on their second LP. Around the same time, up the coast in San Francisco, the Charlatans selected it to be their own debut single. The suits at Kama-Sutra Records, however, balked at the idea of releasing a "drug song" as a single (despite the song's decidedly anti-drug stance), and instead released a cover of the Coasters' The Shadow Knows. The novelty-flavored record bombed so bad that the label decided not to release any more Charlatans tracks, thus leaving their version of Codine gathering dust in the vaults until the mid 1990s. Meanwhile, back in 1968, Quicksilver Messenger Service was still without a record contract, despite being known as one of the "big three" San Francisco bands (the others being Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead). The producers of the quasi-documentary film Revolution took advantage of the situation, using footage of Quicksilver performing Codine in the film. With the film itself in post-production, the producers commissioned the band to record a studio version of Codine for inclusion on the soundtrack album.

Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 2237 (starts 9/5/22)

https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/437499-dc-2237

    This week we rummage around the record collection looking for just the right tune. Do we find it? Read on...

Artist:    Allman Brothers Band
Title:    Midnight Rider
Source:    CD: Beginnings (originally released on LP: Idlewild South)
Writer(s):    Gregg Allman
Label:    Polydir (original labels: Capricorn/Atco)
Year:    1970
    Gregg Allman said it only took him about an hour to come up with most of what would come to be known as his signature song, Midnight Rider. He had problems coming up with lyrics for the third verse, however, and finally turned to Kim Payne, one of the band's roadies, for help. The two of them broke into the Capricorn studios late at night to record a demo of the song, which was later re-recorded by the full Allman Brothers Band and released on their second LP, Idlewild South. The song was released as the second single from the album, but did not chart in its original form, even though that recording is far superior to the various cover versions (including one by Gregg Allman himself as a solo artist) that actually did chart over the years.

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix
Title:    Night Bird Flying
Source:    CD: First Rays Of The New Rising Sun (originally released on LP: The Cry Of Love)
Writer(s):    Jimi Hendrix
Label:    MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1971
    Night Bird Flying was one of a handful of fully completed tracks that were slated for the next Jimi Hendrix album when the guitarist unexpectedly passed away in late1970. Naturally, the song was selected for inclusion of the first posthumous Hendrix LP, The Cry Of Love, as well as various CDs over the years, including Voodoo Soup and First Rays Of The New Rising Sun, both of which were attempts to assemble what would have been the fourth Jimi Hendrix studio album. In all cases, however, I think the compilers missed the obvious: Night Bird Flying should have been the second track on the album, following Freedom. Don't ask me how I know this. I just do. Call it a gut feeling if you will, but Night Bird Flying belongs in that #2 slot. Period.

Artist:    National Lampoon
Title:    Those Fabulous Sixties
Source:    CD: Greatest Hits Of The National Lampoon (originally released on LP: Radio Dinner and as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Guest/O'Donoghue
Label:    Uproar (original label: Banana)
Year:    1972
    Long before he was Nigel Tufnel of Spinal Tap or Count Rugen (the six-fingered man) in The Princess Bride, Christopher Haden-Guest, 5th Baron Haden-Guest was a writer and performer on the National Lampoon Radio Hour. One of his most famous bits was his dead-on imitation of Bob Dylan hawking a record album called Those Fabulous Sixties that appeared on National Lampoon's first LP, Radio Dinner, and was chosen to grace the B side of the first single from that album. A member of the British Peerage, Guest has in recent years gotten more into writing and directing independent films in a style similar to that of This Is Spinal Tap, letting the actors in those films (including such notables as Harry Shearer, Catherine O'Hara and Michael McKean) to improvise the dialogue.

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    Living In The Past
Source:    LP: Living In The Past (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1969
    By the end of the 1960s most UK labels had abandoned the British practice of not including singles on LPs. One notable exception was Island Records, who continued to issue mutually exclusive Jethro Tull albums, singles and EPs into the early 1970s. Among those non-LP tracks was the 1969 single Living In The Past, which would not be included on an LP until 1972, when the song became the title track of a double LP Jethro Tull retrospective. The song then became a hit all over again, including in the US, where the original single had failed to chart.

Artist:     Canned Heat
Title:     Time Was
Source:     CD: The Very Best Of Canned Heat (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:     Al Wilson
Label:     Capitol/EMI (original label: Liberty)
Year:     1969
     Although not known for their single releases, Canned Heat actually had a reasonable amount of chart success, especially considering that they were essentially a blues band in a rock world. Time Was, written and sung by co-founder and guitarist Al "Blind Owl" Wilson, was one of the last of these charted singles.

Artist:     Jerry Garcia
Title:     Sugaree
Source:     Mono 45 RPM single (promo)
Writer:     Garcia/Hunter/Kreutzmann
Label:     Warner Brothers
Year:     1972
     In 1972 Warner Brothers gave the individual members of the Grateful Dead the opportunity to record solo albums. Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir and drummer Micket Hart took them up on the offer. Garcia's effort was unique in that he played virtually all the instruments on the album himself (except for the drum parts, which were played by Bill Kreutzmann). One of the best known songs from that album is Sugaree, which was soon added pretty much permanently to the Dead's concert repertoire.

Artist:    David Bowie
Title:    Golden Years
Source:    CD: Nothing Has Changed (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: Station To Station)
Writer(s):    David Bowie
Label:    Columbia/Legacy (original label: RCA Victor)
Year:    1975
    Shortly before going to work on the film The Man Who Fell To Earth, David Bowie began writing a new song, Golden Years. After the film was completed, Golden Years became the first song completed for the album Station To Station, and was released in November of 1975 as the lead single from the album (which came out in January of 1976). The song was done in a similar style to Fame, which had been a huge international hit the previous year.

Artist:    Moody Blues
Title:    In The Beginning/Lovely To See You
Source:    CD: On The Threshold Of A Dream
Writer(s):    Edge/Hayward
Label:    Deram
Year:    1969
    If there is any one band known for their concept albums, it's the Moody Blues. Starting with the 1967 LP Days Of Future Past, every Moody Blues album has been a concept album (except for their live albums, of course). 1969 saw two of these albums being released by the group. The first was On The Threshold Of A Dream, which explores dreams and the inner psyche. The opening track, In The Beginning, consists of a dialogue between Justin Hayward (as a man attempting to define himself as a human being), Graeham Edge (as the voice of technology attempting to usurp the role of humanity) and Michael Pinder (as the inner voice of the original speaker), set against a background of electronic effects created by Edge. Heady stuff, but that' pretty much what the Moody Blues were about in 1969.

Artist:    Guess Who
Title:    Orly
Source:    45 RPM promo single       
Writer(s):    Burton Cummings
Label:    RCA Victor
Year:    1973
    By 1973 the Guess Who had gone through several personnel changes, with only vocalist/keyboardist Burton Cummings and drummer Garry Peterson left from the band that had hit it big with songs like These Eyes and American Woman. The rest of the band included lead guitarist Kurt Winter, rhythm guitarist Donnie McDougall and bassist Bill Wallace. Orly is pretty much a straight 50s style rock 'n' roll song that takes advantage of more modern recording technology.
    
Artist:    Fleetwood Mac
Title:    Searching For Madge
Source:    CD: Then Play On
Writer(s):    John McVie
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1969
    Fleetwood Mac was founded by Peter Green in 1967. Green had been a member of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and as a Christmas gift, Mayall bought Green some studio time to use as he saw fit. Green used the time to record a set of tunes with drummer Mick Fleetwood and guitarist Jeremy Spencer in the hope that the three of them might form a new band. Green chose the name Fleetwood Mac as a way of enticing Bluesbreakers bassist John McVie into joining the band as well. It wasn't until after the album was released and the new band started getting gigs that McVie did indeed come on board, eventually bringing his future wife Christine Perfect into the band as well. In 1969 another guitarist, Danny Kirwan, joined the lineup for Then Play On, the first Fleetwood Mac LP to be released in the US. It was also Green's last album with the band. Two of the tracks on Then Play On are actually sections of a long jam session, both containing the word Madge in their official title. The longer of these is Searching For Madge, which runs nearly seven minutes.

Artist:    Faces
Title:    Borstal Boys
Source:    LP: Appetizers (originally released on LP: Ooh La La)
Writer(s):    McLagen/Stewart/Wood
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1973
    By late 1972, a lot of people considered Faces to be little more than Rod Stewart's backup band, a perception that the singer himself did nothing to discourage. In fact, Stewart seemed to be buying into it himself, as demonstrated by the fact that he skipped out on the first two weeks' worth of recording sessions for the album Ooh La La. As a result, the album itself, released in March of 1973, has been referred to as "Ronnie Lane's album". To add insult to injury, shortly after Ooh La La was released, Stewart publicly declared it to be a "stinking rotten album" and "a bloody mess". Despite this, Ooh La La, which would turn out to be the band's last studio effort, went all the way to the top of the British charts, due in part to songs like Borstal Boys, which appears at the end of the original LP's first side.

Artist:    Santana
Title:    Incident At Neshabur
Source:    CD: Abraxas
Writer(s):    Gianquito/Santana
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1970
    Incident At Neshabur is one of many instrumental tracks on the second Santana album, Abraxas. In fact, among rock's elite, Carlos Santana is unique in that nearly half of his entire recorded output is instrumentals. This is in large part because, with the exception of an occassional backup vocal, Santana never sings on his records. Then again, with as much talent as he has as a guitarist, he really doesn't need to.

Artist:    Carpe Diem
Title:    Laure (L'Or)
Source:    French import LP: Cueille Le Jour
Writer(s):    Farrault/Abbenanti
Label:    Crypto
Year:    1977
    The mid-1970s saw the rise of several bands that combined elements of rock, jazz and classical music with the latest electronic technology to create something entirely new. In Germany it came to be called Kraut-rock, while in other countries it went by names like art-rock, prog-rock or space-rock. The French Riviera was home to Carpe Diem (originally called Deis Corpus), who released two LPs. The second of these, Cueille Le Jour, was released in 1977, and features a mix of vocal and instrumental tracks. A good example of the latter is Laure, which for some reason is titled L'Or on the record label itself. Although the album went largely unnoticed when originally released in 1977, it has since come to be regarded as one of the lost classics of progressive rock.

Artist:    Deep Purple
Title:    Wring That Neck (aka Hard Road)
Source:    CD: The Book Of Taleisyn)
Writer(s):    Blackmore/Lord/Simper/Paice
Label:    Eagle (original label: Tetragrammaton)
Year:    1968
    Wring That Neck is an instrumental piece by Deep Purple first recorded for their second LP, The Book Of Taleisyn. The piece served as the band's opening number for live performances, particularly when touring the US in 1968 and 1969. The title refers to the playing styles of guitarist Richie Blackmore and bassist Nicky Simper, who would "wring the neck" of their instruments to "squeeze out" the notes, according to Simper. The band's American label, Tetragrammaton, felt that the title was too violent, however, and had it changed to Hard Road for the album's US release. One of the stops on the band's American tour was San Francisco, home of a band called It's A Beautiful Day. Don And Dewey, the opening track of It's A Beautiful Day's second LP, Marrying Maiden (released in 1970), uses an almost identical signature riff to that of Hard Road. Meanwhile Child In Time, the best-known track on Deep Purple's 1970 LP Deep Purple In Rock, is built around a riff nearly identical to that of Bombay Calling, a popular concert piece from It's A Beautiful Day's 1969 debut album. A double coincidence? I think not.

Artist:    Steely Dan
Title:    Everyone's Gone To The Movies
Source:    CD: Katy Lied
Writer(s):    Becker/Fagen
Label:    MCA (original label: ABC)
Year:    1975
    As you may have noticed, I'm not all that much into lyrics. My few years of formal music training were all in instrumental music. As a result, I can appreciate the complexity of Steely Dan's music without having the slightest clue as to what the lyrics are trying to imply. Case in point: Everyone's Gone To The Movies. Even with the lyric sheet in front of me I can't figure out what this one's about. So, I'll just appreciate the musical end of things instead and let the poets have a field day with the lyrics.