Friday
principal edwards
...this lot formed while at college with more members than the population of some small countries, the all singing all dancing principal eddies got themselves signed to the forward thinking dandelion in 1969 and over the next couple of years put out their first twodisks...wordy story folky grooves mixed in with the occasional hard progging riffs (with flutes and bongos, yeah) these wax's were an aquired taste back in the day and a few cats will probably need some time to settle in with them before listening proper... this will benefit from the use of cans and some green leaf (hydro is more than recommended)...
...principals office...
...principals office...
Wednesday
steppenwolf
...first LP from these rockers kicks off with a funky rock number with lashings of organ and the whole thing spirals out from there...stonesian grooves flow through with other small embellishments here and there of anglo '67 psych mixed into the streamlined blues...chuck berry and howlin' wolf get some low down grease smeared over the grooves with tasty proto metal fuzz emanating from the electric strings...contains 'an elergy to groupies and the two tunes that are forever associated with them (born to be wild/pusher) and all these years down the road they still sound unique in a overcrowded market place...one of the harbingers of a new suburban hard rock aesthetic that would encompass such combos as grand funk/aerosmith on a commercial level and sir lord baltimore/jubal in a more esoteric/underground vibe)...in a way they may well have peaked early so as to allow for lesser talents to get the geetus and gold, but the groove still lingers......push...
...this here was the third biscuit from the 'wolf and it garnered a lot of negative vibes when it appeared back in '69 mainly due to the fact that it didn't seem to have the commercial groove of the previous two...what tunes they ever seemed to have somehow got lost out on the hippy highway somewhere, got misplaced in all that heavy metal thunder...yep indeed, it looked like the dis was in and they were just another washed up hippy combo riding the rails to nowhere but in truth this was their experimental album and it just took a little longer for the injestion process to get itself in alignment with the old synapses...take away the name and hits and put this out as a disk by a bunch of heads from down the block and it takes on a altered reality, all the numbers are different with some left over psych moves and some percussion fills and funky keyboard swirls and swells which pays a few dividends when played a couple of times through the cans...indeed getting on for 4 decades down the pike and this is a fair 40 minutes blast of goodness from a different time and place......party...
candy and model shop soundtracks
...magnifico piece of hollywood psych that's a must for cats who dig the soundtrack vibe but don't need it too loungy with obtrusive and dull string arrangements that can bring the most grooved up layabout down with a bump on the chakra...most '60s hollywood exploito flix had faux garage/surf/greaser soundtracks (often supplied by davie allan when he needed a crust) if a youth audience could be enticed to give up the bread for such wax, whereas here it's jazzbo dave grusin who drops a tab and comes over all avant groovy with wigged out electric doodles that really hit the spot...kind of in the vein of dave axelrod but with cooler drugs and not so much seriousness...real chipper wig lifting stuff and comes complete with real bands supplying quality rock (steppenwolf) and the byrds grooving on 'child of the universe' (different version to dr.byrds)...very very tasty and thats the living truth......candy...
...another one of those swinging '60s hollywood flix, this time directed by a modern euro cat and of course the movie don't make too much sense but with a couple hits from the medecine chest everything is groovy so it don't matter about the script...somehow spirit got themselves the gig of supplying the sounds and its all part of that jazz rock keyboard groove they were laying down at the end of the west coast psych years...totally cool vibes emanating straight from the fridge and goes well on one of those lazy afternoons kicking the gong around...more proof spirit were number one in a field of one, ain't nobody come close to sounding like these cats (not even themselves after sardonicus)......shopping...
Tuesday
mazatec indians
...there do come times when checking out the deads dark star jamming for the zillioneth time just dont press the right buttons and sometimes digging amon duuls bongos to eternity groove needs to rest for a few moments...its these times when all beatnix need to slip those sandles on and get a moving to new pastures where the unfamiliar can work some magic...this wax from bygone daze will fit the bill certainly as this is genuine grooving in space and time, into the void where it all goes in and dont have to come out...its one of those 'worthy' other culture documents that were 'popular' with liberal types from the thirties onward with books and records coming out showing folks not from the whitebread dominant culture...alan lomax took his tape machine down to mississippi to get close to the blues and some cats scored some patronage moolah to go further afield like africa and the east and the cat who got this on tape was gordon wasson, a professorial type who went down mexico way to dig the wiggy scene going down with the mazatec indians who were grooving real strong behind a bowlful of mushrooms and getting down with astral travelling...layabouts with a penchant to spend the afternoon in a recreational way might want to kick the gong around and spin this a couple of times and see what happens...from 1956 to NOW aint so far when the right apparatus is used for the journey...totally buzzing wiggout that at certain points on the temporal line will act as the transporter to a better way...a bit scratchy in places where flipped-out types have tried to put the needle down while in other dimensions so this wax had a beatnik heritage that will enhance the passage way to the inner world...
...shroom...
...shroom...
rust
...this is a proper nice forgotten slab of late six oh grist that was recorded in germany by cats from some other climes, the sleeve note is nicely vague in an exploito style way...its so much more fun to know practically nothing about these old hippy style combos than to have a bombardment of facts that basically tell the listener they've got a bunch of squares spinning out the tunes; its best to just survive on hearsay and rumour, more enjoyable and easily better than the truth (the notes also mention that the lyrics are a sensation and the music will have the listener off balance, thats a good recomendation for any cat to take it as they will)...its good post psych thud pop mixed in with some old freakbeat moves plus fx after every track...a couple of tracks ain't so hot but mostly this is much better than could be expected and definitely more worthy than so called mega-rare acid monsters that get hawked every now and then in the dwindling world of collector scum...if the freaks on the cover were the combo this really would be off balance, no bout adoubt it, but the 'actual' band look like cool street trash so its ok anyways...all in all an intriguing biscuit that hepster cats can dig......coming...
autosalvage
...one of those disks that continually popped up in bargain bins in the early 70's in the more hep urban locales and of course got snapped up by the more astute busto-crusto heads...this NYC combo is a mixture of some or all of the following styles then prevalent in '68 when this wax dropped: folkrock/psychfolk/baroquepop/avantrock/acidrock and yet at the same time its none of them as they definitely got a sound thats them and no-one else...once a cat has heard this it aint something that's forgotten as the multitude of ideas in the tunes makes it a strong candidate for multiple spins...one LP that these cats had obviously been listening to a lot is the fabs 'revolver', especially the more painted dreams inner space grooves that bubble nicely here and there...very interesting disk still worth some attention and its nice use of stereo makes it a great peice of groovesville six-oh listening......salvaged...
Sunday
jackie deshannon
...this is jackie getting a funky groove on at the back end of '68, just in time for the newly emerging singer/writer phenomenon (the fact that she had been such an artiste since the late '50s didn't matter-this was new territory)...this is jackie 'grown up', no longer being seen as an irrelevant perveyor of teenpop/MOR songstress, jackie reaching for a new audience that might be waiting for a new sound...being on an old fashion label (liberty) didn't help her get this audience, they had no idea how to market this new style so it all came to nothing (she had a minor hit with the bands big deal tune(the weight) but otherwise...)...with the brilliant illuminating vision of hindsight she should have gone to warner bros who were getting some kind market space with randy newman/van dyke parks (though they couldn't shift any of parks wax they still wanted him on the label, they tried their upmost with him), but all this don't take away the stone cold fact this is some barefoot funky stew that needs to be heard by all heads that dig the strong and mellow vibes that were happening roundabout this time, the 'get back' vibe that was getting stronger since the tapes from big pink had started getting widely circulated...a top spin and goes well with the carole king joint (th'city) that was out the same time......laurel...
...having spent the sixties writing some top pop and singing some cool tunes (girl group/folk rock), hanging out with the fab4 playing monopoly and generally grooving in the cool place it was time at the end of the decade to get some funky earthy grooves going, much like her contemporary, carole king who was also getting some serious granola biscuits on the simmer...recorded down in memphis this is a cool listen from front to back with some southern soul vibes mingling with the mung bean funk, low slung bourbon country missives from down home...definitely one of jackies most satisfying LPs and this is especially worthy of inspection as it comes with a bunch of other tracks recorded around the same time...solid goodness that hits the spot every time, top grist from a great artist......jacked...
burzum
...second demo from this lost soul of rock'n'roll...working on a couple of riffs and just sticking in a groove this can come on somewhat trancy especially on the better taped session...the downside of this could be that it led to vargs new age disks and that ain't necessarily a right thing to do...it could have been his latter day circumstances that led to new age but its got to be there in the system until the 'system' decides otherwise, but thats not any concern right now as this is a good enough exercise in teenage rock expression without financial gain to merit underground rock heads get a lobeful of this swill and splatter...put some stun behind some of this and theres a direct linear path to link wray(a stoned link wray mainly its got to be said)...this is loner stoner from deep within ancient forests where the earth gods roam sending messages of hope to cats from tomorrow who dwell in the incessant riff of hep vibrations......riff...
...first market place offering from the count, comes complete with droning buzzing squeeeling guitars and some strangely '70's hard rock riffs to occasionally lighten up the agony of this screeeching gonesville racket...this is most assuredly some heavy agony being exerted with a disgust that is rarely present in rock'n'roll, the amount of waxings with this much gauze of revoltion can be counted in the single digit...vargs vocal style gets straight to the point and down to the wire, it lets cats into his netherworld of ancient pain that is not a happy place, not a place to inhabit for longer than this disc allows for, this is a stern area that only the hardiest of fool hardy need tread...as a public health warning, cats of a nervous disposition might wish to see whats in the medicine draw before proceeding into the depths of the counts frozen landscape...layabouts who summon the will to get a nearer beam on varg will need the information that if ever there was some wax that needed hearing before heavy listening takes place this is it...in fact play this disc in the room whilst loafing outside then check back to see what damage may have occured during the burzum tenure, its the only way...sorts heads from civilians without too much effort......screaming pain...
...this is more gruesome visitations in the form of a 3 track extended play where we see varg letting loose with more noise pollution from his stanky northern basement...buzzsaw droning splattering swill with the count growling and exorsising his pain and disgust with everything he sees around him...a cold dark nightmare that reflects the suffering anguish the square society does not want to contemplate...as usual spin with the setting on stun and watch the walls shake and the air turn a strange colour of grey......splat...
...the murky fog and generational tape hiss haze here is possible entrance into some psychedelic netherworld full of distortion and distraction with little hope of returning the same...although an illicit recording by a cat who seems to be wandering around at this oslo '92 gig its caught the whole basement black metal ethic of punked out cheap recording, and of keeping it real...this should have got a proper release and upped the whole standard of BAD sound (this makes the mayhem demo look major corporate rock whoredom)...the whole room seems to spin round and due to all the distraction present, listening makes for a trancy time as a cats got to concentrate and all conscious thought of the outside world disappears as occasional bad tempered gutteral bursts erupt over nonstop machine drumming...small infections of basic riff screaching ooze from the primordial swamp of fowl sludge enticing the listener ever onward...under the right conditions this makes it into the avant garde parallel universe of cinema verite/found sound/glimpses in time/momentary recording...thats the first side, side two is some prog? suite of ambient ancient space rock where the centuries call out to the ancestors secret codes of esoterica...again due to the cheap synth whacked out recording (not to mention gliches and scrapes), this is cool for layabouts who got a sense of humour, otherwise prog purists who dig the squeaky clean sound of lesser combos such as college proggers yes and floyd and t.dream are going to have to resort to heavy narcotic pillows to weather the 23 minutes of e.c comix weirdness......urrg...
d.r hooker
...giving the cover of this early seventies bargain bin gem a look, cats can surmise this hippy was a bit of a free thinker when it came to satorial elegance, as its a given this cat thought the cult look would catch on with heads and rubes alike...the inside wax is pretty cool at trying to give out different vibes for different lobes, going from one style to another is no problem, it all sounds right with each of the tracks flowing in and out together...the whole shebang kicks off with some stoner psych racket with fx overload and then on through jazzboing, lounge, louisms (he digs reed a fair amount and cops a couple of third LP velvets moves here and there)...all rolled into one acid dream this is a hep disk for green afternoons when the sun streams through the dusty garret panes...does not disappoint...
...truth...
...truth...
Thursday
tim buckley
...the new seven oh decade brought a new direction from tim as he embarked on a more avant jazz trip...this last recording for the once mighty elektra label see's a great slab of hep droning jazzbo explorations that took adventurous cats to a different level every time it was spun...another cool thing about this LP was the fact it was a cutout bin clogger for a couple of years so the perenial broke head could grab hold, before it came to dropping off the cultural underground radar for a quarter century...one of those disks that needs to be heard a couple of times before listening proper to get the full impact...highly recommended as is all buckley grist......soar away...
mount rushmore
...these low rent beer swillers got to finding their mystic home at the swampy intersection where R'n'B racket meets psychedelic heavy blues rock, the bilge pond that bubbles and gloops with septic festerings...stoner sludge choogle fueled on cheap acid and booze, these cats could easily induce a bad trip lasting a whole weekend when prolonged exposure at a frisco ballroom gig was happened upon by unsuspecting hippys...the first wax has some looser style slop jams while the second sees the combo tightening up the groove (but not too much, there's still chaos in the vibe)...the perfect antidote back in the day when left coast hippys were turning onto rural rock meanderings...both joints are worthwhile and bring a smile and certainly good stuff for cats who dig the blurred mess of psychosis......high69...
kyuss
...a very nice film of sludge creeps over this early nineties skronked pile of stoner hard rock blowout...its like standing in the hot midday sun and having ones mind soup fry and bubble with gloopy swamp gas...sounds like it was recorded in a good sounding room as opposed to produced in a studio and thats real cool as the rumbling volcanic bass eruptions from primordial tarpits just slam into heavy trip ancient outer-world detroit ballroom pummel guitar shenanigans all laid over thunderous drums pounding out hypnotic messages to any cat willing to receive......baked...
mother superior
...real nice second disk from this west coast seven oh inspired hard rocking trio...these modern day cats're coming on heavy with some riffing funky-blueswailing splatter that sums up everything good from the 68/73 axis of small town cream/hendrix/grand funk/skynyrd infatuated cellar dwelling stoners...a real surprising throw back to the earlier age of fx-pedal rocking madness...recommended and then some, dig it......screach and wah...
shiver
...here's a nice exemplification of what can only be considered basement level freak acid rock splatter dateing from the early seventies, nearer to the messy drug pummel of the 60's than the hard rock sound that went onto score corporate bread for some sell out/easily persuaded rock musos...digging the wares on offer one thing comes on like a stone cold certainty which is that when out record hunting these cats obviously didn't have too much scratch and even between the three of them they only managed to score one LP and that was a cutout copy of the second blue cheer LP, but they lovingly played it alot, everyday, two or three times...they took the cheers earlier wrecked teenage stoner blast to heart and came on strong with their own version, thats the basis for their lunging ambling rock'n'roll assault mixed in with fx-pedal noodling...though true to say there was an over abundance of this sort of combo back in the day, most never getting anywhere near a recording studio of any sort theres no need for rose coloured spectacles to aid any hindsight for this is one groovily excellent look at third generation ballroom racket-mongers...legend has it they played a lot of free gigs and street fayres along with biker beer-bashes so their hearts were in the right place if' commercially they had long since missed the train to glory......drug mess...
Tuesday
patti smith
...patti's first long player came as some kind of revelation, even to cats who'd seen her live or checked the 'hey joe' 45...mind thwacking rock'n'roll with hallucinogenic poetry was not the sort of thing that was happening in mid seven oh land, specialy on a major label...it was like the whole tapestry of rocking noise being rewove into an avant explosion of past and future void opening vibrations...a meeting of time and space in the middle of a cats cranium...the optimism this wax brought to countless heads alone makes this one of the all time hep stonking great efforts in the hundred years of recording...being produced by john cale hooks this up nicely to the velvets legend which was still extant slightly (the whole continuous trance vibe cale had picked up from lamont youngs eternal music performances, gave patti an excuse to wig out endlessly) and by kicking the LP off with 'gloria' patti places this in a linear position to the song that started the whole mid sixties garage blast and shows her knowledge of the importance of rock'n'roll as life affirming substance, not just entertainment...this has got to be patti at the peak of her powers, she was putting the groove down like no one else at the time, it didn't get any better, patti was sailing waters that had been still for ages, now the waves were crashing onto the rock'n'roll sands...maybe not quite as revolutionary sounding anymore but under the right circumstances and conditions this makes it home every time...
...johnny...
...johnny...
haymarket square
...this combos main claim to any and all fame seems to be they were part of a live 'art' gallery happening coming complete with a light show of the psychedelic persuasion at the windy city museum of modern art back in the day when things like that were allowed to come to fruition...this waxing is the soundtrk of that performance...its pretty much 6 longish tracks of frisco acid-ballroom folkrock with some R'n'B /blues underpinning...a nice example of the west coast vibe /sound/optical-weirding moving eastward and getting picked up by the art establishment, no doubt they didn't want to miss out on something new and hopefully different even though its a no lose gamble they didn't really understand any of what was going on......magical...
slade
...although there's no perceivable psychedelic noises on this platter there is a definite influence of the post psych vibe to a couple of the numbers which mixes in a transitional move with the kind of semi tuneful hard rock and thud pop that make up this disk...the sort of racket that was going on in backrooms and cellar clubs the length and breadth of merrie olde england for a couple of years before pub rock and the rise of glam to counteract the muicianly moves of the 'progressive' hordes of middle class twerps that were gaining hold in colleges and bigger halls...the title of this wax is totally spot on and should be heeded to the letter......thud...
raspberries
...first thing a cats got to know about these disks is that the spirit of macca fab4ness looms pretty large and if that meets with approval on the chillometer then its a big A-OK as what's happening on these first two waxings from these cleveland anglo poppers is some looking back to go forward...they couldn't see any future in noodling stale acid rock and bolting good teen songwriting to some riffing and style of earlier years looked a pretty viable option...when played back to back #2 wax comes off stronger but played individually there's much to dig on each...anyhow turn it up and grab an earfull......anglo pop...
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