New & old Sixties-flavoured music reviews page (60's psych)

Gear Fab Rec. Unfolding : How to Blow Your Mind &

Have a Freak-Out Party (US,1967)***°

Music inspired from weed, alcohol, or LSD is pretty different. Weed makes stoned kind of freak-out music, alcohol creates smoky kind of freak-out moments, while LSD keeps things clear, only adds elements that are supposed not to be there, or makes more from what is there. So, do I suppose that the Unfolding expresses some kind of LSD party ? Yes, something like that. It is in general much more British in sound than American, also because it has a certain humour, colourful, like a circus, showing lots of things, often several things at the same time. I can easily imagine with it, typical 70’s animation movies made of colourful collages, bringing us from one world into the next. I don’t think this is directly inspired by drugs, but the idea to create a rich world of expression surely is exploited (with humour, I repeat, with humour). The freak-out party has two sections, I say rooms for the party to visit. I would say that there is the room of the hopeful, the living, partying with the music from the A-side : the ‘Acid Rock’ part, and then there’s also a chill-out room, for the hopeless, or for the consciously or unconsciously dying, who get the music from “the meditation site”. All wannebees will get there their legal doses of oriental meditations.

The Acid-rockers have a Hendrix-typed freak-out rock track, with wonderful lyrics like “I need to get high in the sky I wonder Why”, a freakbeat track with ’60 harmony vocals, another danceable west coast psychedelia track, and then, there is a special track for the special guest of the evening, the sexy opera singer Flora, where, while she is singing, others smoke giant sacks of marihuana, and while their flute, I mean some flute is playing with the singer, I mean flutes along with her vocals, creating a Russ Meyer kind of soundtrack and fantasy, which is my favourite track (and place?). Last track on this session is called “Love Surpreme Deal”, which is a psychedelic version with a marching-band-on-a-rolling-exercise-machine rhythm kind of folkrock, with a slightly unsteady rhythm, and a UFO sound in the background coming in here and there, ending with a real surreal circus ride.

The chill-out side has plenty of varied food for meditations. “Prana” has all the yin yang yoga mishmash, sitars, and kundallinis, oohs and aahs, gurus and guiding rituals, and everything with number 7, leading to the next track and Buddha state with more spoken word on “Electric Buddha” with OMmmms, klingklangs bells, and background chitchats. And also the “hare Krishna’s” are there, who, like innocent fools repeat themselves, in a state of psychedelic, with the ‘nonsense of the children’, making a ritual, with additional bongos and boneheads and a funny organ drone. Last track, and final state for the end of the party is when hearing the parable, preparing yourself for a state of ultimate wisdom with flute improvisation : very entertaining. In all fun, everything on the record can be taken extremely serious. An entertaining album !

Info : http://www.hipwax.com/liners/freakout.html

Label info : http://gearfab.swiftsite.com/Catalog_List/catalog_221.html

Madcap Records The Hampton Court : Psychedelic Comedy (UK,rec.2002?)*°°

While the liner notes makes us believe this is all compiled and recorded from the late 60s mostly, for me this is not clearly enough if this is a deliberate confusion or joke or not, and if it so, to some degree, I can not see the real comedy of it either. The musicians who are here involved in the making of this “‘60s remake” compilation obviously are ‘60s lovers till death tears them apart in flower powders. Their enthusiasm speaks clearly, and they have plenty of references to the best of these days remembered on various 60s psych compilations. Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett are some of the over clear references, used as collage stickers, just like surf guitars, greatly made remakes of TV commercials, and so on. This musical concept with a certain portion of fake randomness in collecting it, is collected with a circus-like enthusiasm with a somewhat playful fantasy-like result. With a much bigger budget it would have been made better, but the melodic richness is all there, just like all the entertaining elements. I personally assume that all of this is recorded in a small studio at home, nailed between 4 window-less walls and is compiled with headphones mostly : a primitively recorded home-made product, which makes almost every detail, pushed-and-recorded, monotone and linear, very much to the nearest front/fore of every sound (keyboard-based home-made electro was called “house” for this reason), with little production effects, use of rather primitive keyboards, -which fake also the trumpet arrangements-. Luckily this not entirely spoils the stuffed entertaining ideas at all. Within a primitive frame of production I was still able to keep the impression this sounds like a fictive suggestion for a rather entertaining post-Barrett styled fictive soundtrack for some new neo-60s psychedelic comedy series on television.

PS. The group is actually a disguise of Alice's Orb, a mostly Syd Barrett inspired neo-psych band, mostly known for some activity during the 90s.

Description : http://www.clear-spot.nl/catalog/view.php?item_id=287691

Alice's Orb discography : http://www.io.com/~dugless/alicesorb.html

Other page on Alice's Orb : http://www.psychedelic-music.de/pmdb/db3/db_band.php4?id=179

Get Hip Rec.

Take a stand with The Ugly Beats (US,2007)**'

Ugly Beats managed to make a pleasant to listen to CD, from start to finish. This means they have played all their self-penned tracks, mostly songs, just like a convincing instrumental cover-like band which is entirely style-inspired. We hear a going-out energy of upbeat and mid-tempo beat garage/beat inspirations, a bit like rockers, with just a few fashionable harmony-vocals love songs, inspired mostly by the attractive fundamental 60s beats. In that case the lyrics are a bit banal, and are only there to please the retro-styled pleasant rhythmic melodies. I like very much the instrumental, “Action Plus” with nice and pleasant Farfisa melodies, with some fine rhythm changes and a Byrds like electric guitar. For basement gigs, this could be a successful revivalist band.

Audio : "Take a Stand " (WMFU) & "You're the one" (WMFU), "Can't Cut Through" : click "music" on their homepagewhich is on : http://www.uglybeats.com/

or find more audio on http://www.myspace.com/theuglybeats

and 5 more tracks on http://www.gethip.com/...

Description : http://www.soundflat.de/shop/shop.cfm?artnr=11516

Other reviews : http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/review?oid=oid%3A467034

& http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/ReaderComments/?ContainerID=467034

& http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Guides/Bands?oid=160073

Label entry: http://www.gethip.com/...

Music-Maniac/V.A. : V/A - Scream Loud!!!

Wayback Rec. The Fenton Story (US,pub.2006)**°° -(2CD/LP)-

Often with a label, the encouragement and visions of the head decides what kind of groups sound is promoted. Dave Kalmbach from the Fenton label, a young musician himself, provided a starting support which local groups from the Western Michigan area needed. Most of the 100 singles and few albums that were produced were garage bands. Frank Uhle explains in his splendid introduction, that these groups were less influenced by blues and soul compared to other regional scenes. With some influence of the known more power-melodic beat groups, he writes that this was “…combined with teenage exuberance and a dose of hormonally-induced male aggression” (a description which fits actually with most mid ‘60’s garage, punk), which resulted in a sound that became associated with the label (which also had a few sub-labels). The attitude shown by the bands is much more than usual for a teenage garage/punk style (also related with the area ?) is a ‘feel sure about yourself’ approach, perhaps the uncompromising local way of living tended to take no risks with weak feeling. Like was common in the ‘60’s the singles were meant as potentional hits, and more than once they also succeeded to hit local radio charts. Also great to see is how each of the 32 groups listed (with 62 songs in total) gets extensive background information.

The sound quality is much better than most garage compilations. The two cd’s have a different title and perhaps can be put in a slightly different category as well.

CD1 called “Shadows in the night” focuses mostly on tracks that perhaps have most power in the arrangements and instrumentation. Here, especially in the more powerful garage tracks, I think, the Fenton sound and approach delivered most original results. Most bands here show that extra portion of self-assured originality that makes them worth hearing and keeping : with a raw melodic attractiveness, very direct, but with attention to a good production and detail. A handful of tracks still come from the more stylistic rock’n roll heritage, but often also there is added a typical garage touch. The first 5 tracks of the compilation are already amongst such tracks, from Quest’s, Tonto & The Renegades ("Little Boy Blue"), Beaux Jens ("She was mine"), Chancellors (with great organ lead), and perhaps also Jujus. But there are also attractive tracks more directing towards beat (The 9th Street Market, Blokes, Shefields, Aardvarks). The most attractive of them and most distinctive is Headhunters, very fast melodic organ. But for me a real surprise which I liked a lot is the track by Mussies with “12 o’clock, July”, a freaky instrumental, which I considered to have inventive and well produced details, like surprising echo switches and unusual freaky arrangements. The notes describe that “the chaotic sound was partly the indifferent sound engineer”. Secondly, a broken guitar amp resulted in a direct plugged in guitar, and while the others couldn’t hear him, they added more to compensate for the ‘missing’ instrument. The band was called Violations first, but they had to change their name.

The second CD, “Do you understand me” is even closer to the beat style and have their full focus on the songs. While these bands never show a vulnerable moment, but also never really invent anything new, the slight garage touch to the recognisable style might sound good, but without much to invent more, there are little surprises that add more to the existing scene, which gives the second CD a bit more lazy ok listening, at least for more or less the first 20 or so songs of it. Just one girl vocalist is involved, in a band called 'Lyn and the Invaders' with a nice track called “boy is gone”. Then a few stand outs appear, like perhaps Chancellor’s “Dear John”, which includes some fuzz and organ. Also weird and unusual and memorable is the almost nonsensical-freaky The Assortment’s “Bless our hippy home”. Also The Plagues with funny-rhythmical track is amongst my favourites. Also different than the others, is Pedestrian’s “Don’t think Twice”, an almost western beat ballad, including bells sounds from the Wurlitzer organ.

If there exist really something like The Fenton sound, I think you can hear it evolve, first attaching itself to some rock’n roll, then blossom and flourish with garage, overcoming the usual punk rawness of such tracks to something well balanced and original clear melodious effect, to the more British beat influence, where the raw teenage energy couldn’t deliver the right extra ideas any more to make it sound as inspired as before. When the sweeter melodious and longer improvisations changed the short track driven ‘60’s sound rapidly, the studio submerged by lack of demand of local teenager groups to show themselves and prove their existence in rock. Perhaps only English bands like Rolling Stones took that first steps in the world of puberty that was so typical for garage, into a more ballad form that could survive the changes of time’s demands of needed expressions.

PS. From all the material that has been recorded in the studios most of the recordings were merely used as demos, and there were only a few acetates printed. Most of the surviving tapes are now in hands of some record dealer, but these tracks have not shown up yet.

Info : http://www.clear-spot.nl/catalog/view.php?item_id=274798

& http://www.soundflat.de/shop/shop.cfm?artnr=11013

& on http://www.cargorecords.co.uk/...

All details : http://www.rimpo.de/fenton.htm

Other description : http://www.spincds.com/product.asp?id=9008757

Incredible encyclopedic website on West Michigan Label Releases :

http://www.grandrapidsrocks.com/releases/

Elsewhen Rec. Loop Guru : Elderberry Shiftglass (US,2006)****

While the previous album by Loop Guru was a kind of organic Trance music with an Indian flavour to it, this newer album is very different. Already in the previous album you could hear how the duo was capable of making a kind of soundtrack, where they mixed it with World music ideas and nature samples. While that was a World Trance music affair, this album is inspired entirely based upon their interest in ‘60’s psychedelia. They both have listed 25 (well chosen) song and instrumental favourites for “psychedelic earfood”. I don’t think they sampled just anything this time. With the help of some friends they turned their psychedelic listening love affair into a soundtrack, made of a stretched bed of strawberry field melody- and sounds reminders like delicious psychpop fruits, with a few tiny moody passages, and with bridges of spoken word (by Marie-Agathe) in the vein of Timothy Leary or mostly like some famous early ‘60’s movie narrators (referring to some old cult movies, or sometimes with some Alice-in-wonderland kind of passages). The smooth bass still is present. There are some faster or looped electro(nic) beats, a bit of a different instruments in an psychploitation way, different from a traditionalist vision because that wasn’t possible in the sixties, although when it would, it could have been used like this. The music has sweet fruity organ, and other keyboards, ahaa background vocals, tiny bits of Indian music flavours, and lots of orchestrations and arrangements ala Beatles or referring to other recognisable melodies from ‘60’s psychpop songs. A successful approach.

Audio : http://cdbaby.com/cd/loop2 & http://www.myspace.com/loopguru

Review and distribution : http://www.voiceprint.co.uk/web/Release/LG002/

Info : http://www.elsewhen.org.uk/ & http://www.loopguru.demon.co.uk/

& http://www.mechanismrecords.com/Artists/Loopguru/LoopGuru.html

& http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/loopguru

Bio : http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:7cvyxdsb8olj~T1

& http://www.vh1.com/artists/az/loop_guru/bio.jhtml

Article : http://www.global-trance.co.uk/fr_index.html?/Loop_Guru.html

Italian info : http://www.scaruffi.com/vol6/loopguru.html

Previous release : http://psychemusic.org/INDIABEATS.html#anchor_130

Gear Fab Rec. The Palace Guards (US,1966-1969,pub.2007)****

This New Orleans garage band released 5 strong singles (and 10 tracks), so it was worthwhile compiling and checking out the band’s material. Most of the previously released material is teenage related garage, the kind of real-content in songs which I prefer to hear with a garage style, all about love and understanding, the chick related stuff. “Sorry” had an interesting surf-like more exotic guitar style which makes this strong more expressive. There is also psych organ, especially sweet on the romantic “Barbara”. A bit different but also very good is “Gas Station Boogaloo Downtown” and is more dance related garage.

The collection is completed with unreleased material, of which the two only slightly different version of single tracks for me weren’t really necessary, and the keyboard instrumental “Waltz For Alissa” is rather mediocre. “My Window” I think is the strongest bonus track, with funky organ and some twanky guitars, and a fine fuzz guitar solo, all still in a garage context.

PS. Don’t mistake this group for the mid ‘60s Los Angeles/Hollywood beat group with a similar name, ‘The Palace Guard’.

Audio : "Sorry", "Sideshow"

Some incomplete discography on http://rateyourmusic.com/..

Label listing : http://gearfab.swiftsite.com/Catalog_List/catalog_224.html

Other review : http://www.louisianamusicfactory.com/showoneprod.asp?ProductID=5366

Dutch review : http://www.fileunder.nl/archives/2007/03/the_palace_guards_the_complete_recordings.php

60sgaragebands.com The Chains :

"The Beatles of El Paso" (US,1967-1969+1963-1965,re.2007)*°

The album is compiled with enthusiasm and with a very complete documentation (photos, biography) and unreleased tracks, compiled by hard fans of ‘60s garage/punk genre, and is especially for those collectors. For some reason The Chains has been called “The Beatles El Paso”, perhaps because you can recognise a few Beatlesque melody lines/musical themes in some of their tracks, as well as the use of some close harmonies, but the sound is more harsh, and trash, also because of this “loud” and primitive effect, and doesn’t provide real memorable songs. Somewhere the local desert rural influence will have had their influence, an effect which for instance made their single, “It’s a shame”, much more aggressive and primitive basement/garage/punk than anything from the British Isles (although one could refer to the melody of the track “Help!” here), adding a more typical American gringo kind of pepper sauce flavour to the sound. Hearing their earliest group, Johnny and the Starfires (2 bonus tracks were added from 1963) and some of another pre-Chains group the Dolphins (1964-1965) it is clear how their first steps were born as teenagers in rock’n roll/surf/twist times, keeping one rock and roll track also, called “Cee C.Roc”. From the American/British mix the unreleased track “A walk in the woods” is a fine surprise, and is a bit softer. The unreleased track “How Do you feel” (in a similar style as the opener on this compilation) has some good fuzz to it, and a bit of organ. A bit different also is "Stop The World ( I want to get off)", the only 5 minute track, with a bit psychedelic organ and guitar. Other tracks, like “Has anybody seen my friend”, “Animal Farm” and “Heading up heading down” give advantage to the rural American rock sound, also in vocal harmonies, with some good effect especially on “Heading up heading down”, which is more rocking and giving free expression to the lead vocalist. On the other hand it sounds fine on “Has anybody seen my friend” that the sixties basic sound was not neglected. I think it is nice to sense something of the life that has been sensed locally seeping through on the songs, but on the other hand nothing of it is too much in that degree to say that you should not have missed this. So I will say, if you are a real fan of different garage variations, you will find something different to experience.

Audio : "It's A Shame" , "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore", "Has Anybody Seen My Friend"

Info & audio : http://cdbaby.com/cd/chains

Other reviews : http://www.60sgaragebands.com/chainscd.html

& http://www.tor.cc/cd-reviews.htm

& http://www.shindig-magazine.com/reviews-dec2006-1.html

& http://www.jcrmusicnews.com/affprod.php?ind=6464

Way Back / Music Maniac The Weeds aka The Lollipop Shoppe (US,1966-1971,re.2007)****

When Fred Cole joined the Top 40 cover band The Lords (who made one single), they became The Weeds, (locally known also as The Wild Wild Weeds) quickly starting to build solely their own repertoire. They rapidly gained success, and during their repertoire opened for The Yardbirds, The Doors, The Seeds, Moby Grape, Buffalo Springfield, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane,.. Because stylistically and also because of the name, their manager didn’t want the public to confuse them with The Seeds, (which he also managed), so he decided to change their name into The Lollipop Shoppe, a change which couldn’t be undone for several reasons. It was destined to become the name which people were going to remember them by, perhaps until now, with this compilation of most of their works. They also appeared in the low budget biker movie 'Angels From Hell', along with the Peanut Butter Conspiracy, but to cut the costs their two songs didn’t appear in the mov,ie or only a few seconds. (Luckily these two tracks are included here). To kill the time they had drunk such an amount of booze, it caused the group to be banned from playing in Bakersfield, California. The band made a very good LP called 'Just Colour' (published in 1968), which was reissued on LP before by Tapestry Records, and later by Big Beat Records, with one extra single track from the same year, called “Through My Window”, a track, which strangely enough is not listed on this compilation, and on CD by Walhalla Rec. all which I think are now sold out. Luckily this complete album is added on this compilation, only strangely enough without showing any of the original artwork or LP information. When finally the band was asked to do a more poppy album, the band “officially” disbanded as The Lollipop Shoppe, soon to change into Mule during 1970 and than into 'Underground Railroad' from 1970-1971, doing many live gigs, before finally coming back to The Weeds, with one more (and last) single in 1971. When some band members moved elsewhere, the two remaining members formed Zipper in 1973 with a more 70s Zeppelin-esque rock styled LP. The vocalist Fred Cole continued after that in several other bands (King Bee, The Rats, The Desperate Edge, The Western Front, as backing band for Toody, and finally into Dead Moon).

I still remember the very strong single “You must be a witch” from some psych compilation. It is clear how the group first finds their style and originality in an attractive punk/garage-psych style with raw punk sharp vocals. “Little Girl” (1966) still has a certain rock’n roll influence, but the crazy fuzz guitars solos and weird guitar sounds recall a different area of inspiration. The 1968 LP, after the strong punk/psych track shows also the addition of a more psychedelic approach. Especially the almost 8 minute track, “Underground Railroad” is softer, more weird, far-out and psychedelic, with almost Middle Eastern improvised guitars, and evolving, as a longer track to a more upbeat psych energy, with psychedelic guitar solos, and changing from a tempered voice in the beginning to more psych-out emotional vocals, somewhere rooted from garage-punk, showing here how the band managed well to evolve with the times during the late ‘60s. With a few more calm tracks, most of the tracks are shorter, like garage-pop hits, in the way the Rolling Stones were pushed to make something different, from a garage styled root. While mostly with relaxed rhythms, we can hear some fine organ and electric guitar solos way-out. Also the songs related with the movie are a fine continuation, sung with certain emotionality. From the last single, “Stop”, convinced me less, but the change of making the guitars sound a bit more hard rock like I think still a good evolution and fine conclusion for the CD. I can imagine how some listeners could easily find a logical evolution towards the more recent group, Dead Moon. A good compilation, and sounding much more complete compared to the LP alone.

Audio : "Underground Railroad", "It’s Only A Reflection"

Description : http://www.soundflat.de/shop/shop.cfm?artnr=11520

& http://www.clear-spot.nl/catalog/view.php?item_id=279761

Members list : http://pnwbands.com/lollipop.html

Label cover scans and info : http://www.rimpo.de/weeds.html (front page label here)

Short intro on group : http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/music/artist/bio/0,,459882,00.html#bio

& http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lollipop_Shoppe

Track listing LP reissues : http://eil.com/shop/moreinfo.asp?catalogid=387515

& http://eil.com/shop/moreinfo.asp?catalogid=341696

Interview with Fred Cole asking about The Weeds : http://home.unet.nl/kesteloo/lollipop.html

Another article about all related bands : http://www.geocities.com/sunsetstrip/venue/7980/dmhistory.htm

Band members Lollipop Shoppe : http://pnwbands.com/lollipop.html

Review of LP on http://www.lysergia.com/AcidArchives/lamaArchiveL.htm

Posters from "Angels From Hell" : http://www.moviegoods.com/... and http://www.filmposters.com/... and article with different poster : http://dumbdistraction.com/...

Info on Dead Moon (with audio track) : http://www.subpop.com/media/dead_moon

and biographical info in context with Weeds as well : http://www.subpop.com/bio/dead_moon

Gear Fab Rec. Mourning Dayze : The Lost Recordings (US,1967)****

This Wisconsin band released only one strong single in 1967 ("Fly My Paper Airplane"/ “Sad Man’s Madness”, Kiderian 45115). It’s A-side appeared on ‘Psychedelic Archeology vol 9’, and later, also Gear Fab's ‘Psychedelic States Illinois’ had listed this single. Six more tracks were recorded on tape that year (one of them is a second version of the single track) but they never found their way onto vinyl. The remaining members, who now quickly prepared a webpage in remembrance of the group, contacted the label telling them about the tapes, which miraculously still survived in an acceptable way over the years. Even when this means that together they are only over 22 minutes of music, luckily all these tracks are of a comparable, strong musical quality.

The single showed a swirling psych-pop style, with distorted guitars, rhythm organ and bass, and harmony vocals, and a bit of swifting echo. While all tracks listen perfectly as a compilation, only a handful of them are completely similar in style ; there are also more ballad kind of songs. The quality of the recording of the most melancholic track, “Rain Time” fails a bit, but luckily this doesn’t spoil or hide the beauty of this track. The soft ballad, “Are we going to say goodbye” is only accompanied by acoustic guitar and rhythm guitar, and a subtle bit of percussion, not needing more than this. The compilation comes more or less like a surprise and is a very fine new contribution to the history of psychpop music. Very nice !

Audio : "fly my paper airplane"

Homepage : http://www.mourningdayze.com/

Label info : http://gearfab.swiftsite.com/Catalog_List/catalog_225.html

Description : http://www.60sgaragebands.com/gearfabrecords.html

& http://www.clear-spot.nl/catalog/view.php?item_id=278556

UT Rec. The Light : turn on...(US,1967;re.2007)**°°

When two Californian bands united, the Bush (a previously reissued by the label garage band) and the Northside Moss, this was an improvement for their potency and talents. This compilation shows how the band dealt with some evolutions in style. I assume, mostly in primal explorations of their talents in the beginning, their sound was dominated by testosterone and an ambitious, energetic nervous rhythmic and slightly flipped mused side mixed with fastly played electric guitar layers (including the bass). A couple of the listed tracks have an additional female vocalist, which give this fast garage sound a Jefferson Airplane vocal harmony to it. Some of the guitars' improvisations have Byrds influences. The less well recorded live tracks show still a vivid live band, but also more rock and bluesy directions, which are logical evolutions for a popular live band. Such tracks show less of the ambitious energy, but give still some alternation to the compilation. Only a shame such less wild parts are also recorded under less than best conditions, it is here and there more common ideas of live versions of such songs, still with cleverness of the guitar dominating inspiration. Only the last track is not recorded in 1967 but in 1970, a guitar/voice dominated song in a West Coast sound.

Info and description : http://www.ugly-things.com/light.html

or http://www.bompstore.com/servlet/Detail?no=7224