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...studio cats get together and jam out some tunes for a quick hippy cash-in and unexpectedly for all concerned it turns out to be real good, not the usual rehash of old tracks or lame lounge acts getting the whole deal into one non-understanding mess...plenty of tape manipulation and channel hopping which is real cool and groovy scene and makes for chipper reefeded-out 6-oh listening...second side is for meditaion (first side is the freakout party) and is packed out with some funky sitar strumming and weirded out wordage for contemplation...bells and cymbals tinkle and clang and whistles wizz about the stereo spectrum making this as high on the rotation pile in any pad in flipsters paradise...the whole wax is so much better than the actual music scene its hoping to represent itself as, or at least parody...who else sounds like in any given moment the fugs/tim leary/folk-rock-acid-pop (insert fave '67 combo here)/dylan/beaver'n'krause/jeremy steig/zappa, and all knocked out in a few hours...a wild ride clyde and that cant be denied......exploit...
...since the 'rediscovery' of the blues back in those long gone hazy days of six oh times its been like a mission to certain parties to clean it up one way or another...sanitizing it by endless squeaky clean recording until the essential lifeblood has all but disappeared...looking in a store selling blues records these days ain't worth the effort because its going be the same old faces gradually lightening the sound until its transparent...no rough edge recording, no spur of the moment hit and miss riffing, nothing at all to make it exciting...just deadly dull from the getgo till it ends, one completely predictable yawn...apologists say its because there ain't no hard times no more,well brother those cats looking in the wrong direction with heavy lead blinkers as theres hard times everywhere knocking cats back every minute...but there is hope here and there and cats like t-model got their finger on some pulse beat as this biscuit recorded in '97 has got to be some of the most hotcha rent party racket this side of yesterday...cats only got to dig t's bluesman credentials to know this is the real deal...when this was laid down he thinks he was aged 75 (and him and his drummer play 8 hour gigs at saturday night jooks when he feels inclined to get down with the boogie), was ploughing fields when he was 11 and got mixed up in some dangerous business and done some time on a chain gang in later years...cats digging the attacking noise of old blues cats like tommy mcclennan/howlin' wolf, plus the hippy swill mongers like edgar broughton/don van vliet/stackwaddy need look no further seeing as its all here piled up high and ready to roll...a magnificent peice of grist that t-model can be mighty proud of......t...
...even in this information overload age, not too much is known still about this slice of exploito/cash in nonsense from late six oh times...supposedly from british columbia but some possible connections with l.a studio cats...theres some wigged cat who sounds very much like wildman larry f.(not him) pops up a couple times and theres some sunshine pop and r'n'b keyboards swirling around but this is more a comical cutup designed to pull in some teen-hippy bread with its allusions to being some kind of messed up psychedelic trip...some tracks come off good and a couple are just lame fake beatnik humor that would be more at home in suburban fifties land...layabouts needing some sort of handle on this illusive slippery disk might want to dig a pile up of kim fowley/60sMADmagazine/bonzos/murray romans 'beat people up...' LP/wcpaeb/ though on a level that ain't no way hallucinogenic (whiskey and reefer possibly)...once an acceptance has been made that this don't work on its once intended level of suckering in the roobs with promises of out thereness, though in many places this would be above the average patriot citizens tolerance threshold even in this cynical day and age, it is a mighty fine lobeful that can be heard more than once which can't usually be said for most comedy wax...definitely aimed at the kids and not the workaday square its a period piece that sits well with other oddities from when the times they were a'changing......crazy...
...released in '69 this is a great LP full of promise for a jazz/rock fusion that had neither the jazz or rock too far to either side, in other words its creating a new entity, though not third stream, thats another kettle of fish...the whole thing kicks off with a groove straight out of london clubland with some heavy R&B splat from a couple of years earlier but soon the whole shebang is saying this is urgent sounds for the coming decade with horns/keyboards/guitar all vying for the listeners attention and everything held down by jon hisemans drums pounding away...its all updated club noise helping to push the jazzy end of prog to the fore hoping to pick up an audience that was growing steadily who needed to hear 'with it' sounds but that were based in a solid grounding such as souljazz and R&B that had provided a root for most rock'n'roll up to that moment...all the tracks move along with solos popping up and grooving then effortlessly stepping aside for the next cat to riff...a good start to their journey into progland......morituri te salutant...
...the cover of this disk was shot in the chelsea hotel in NYC and the sidewinders played some gigs at max kansas city, home of the dolls and jayne county but that's as far as decadence goes with this combo who much prefer the good honest AM pop radio approach to all things rocking and groovy...mixing in many many parts from the tapestry of six-oh pop/rock from surfing instro twang to merseybeat, from phil spector to creedence bayou sauce spreading across the landscape, white album fabs to hippy beach boys via dion d'mucci...cats working in the same area, drinking in the vibes from the same wellspring would be the raspberries in cleveland, memphis could claim big star as its poprocker sensation and so not to be outdone boston had the sidewinders...quite big (in a relative sense) on the new england underground scene that just couldn't translate club success into radio hits so their chance to be players in the early seventies pop-revival were limited to 'retro action' when andy paley became something of a small noise in the new wave era along with fellow bostonian johnny richman whose modern lovers operated a kind of velvets poprock at the same time playing the same clubs and backroom areas...cats who dig badfinger crossed with some kind of precient pub rock brinsley schwarz will groove with this lenny kaye produced disk as will all with a rock'n'roll heart...
...rocking noise...
...heavy heavy blasts of unbridled heavyocity sludge and swill just oozing and festering its way out of some dingy forgotten cellar where only the hardiest maniac can feel free...thuds and screaching, sometimes with cathartic screams fill up this collection of mangulated noise...layabouts who get a buzz off high energy trash like royal trux are going to dig this art damaged racket, whilst some may need to reach for that there trusty medicine box afore venturing into this minefield of serious squealy bobbins...some live tracks and some studio, but it dont matter, the intensity dont let up, it just digs deeper and deeper into the dark cranial recesses and explodes into galaxy destroying shards of electric fireball mayhem...
...some real nice buzzing punked out hard rock/metal 2nd effort from clevelands finest which at the time came as a disappointment to a lot of cats who were hoping for another screech and pummel like the first LP...thirty years down the line and such concerns don't seem too important cos this rocks good and hard on the tracks that matter (when compared to todays indentikit punkers this is a rocket ship out of control)...overall this plays real well and layabouts who dig the sleazy side of life will find a bundle of hotcha grooves on this slab of wax to rock out with at the next beer bash...
...this is one of those LPs that transpose two eras while inextricably linked to one the others never far from view...in this case the eras are the mid '70s looking back to the '60s, the ghosts of such 'real' luminaries and visionaries as the elevators and SRC(1st & 2 wax)and the vibes of san francisco ballroom R&B/avantpsych combo, the other half...a forward looking motion pervades giving the sound an urgent feel, always waiting to throw shafts of guitar noise in economical burst, that depending on a cats intake of sweet smoke can last for as long as they last though within the confines of 'physical' time dwell many temporal structures...interesting also is the fact that this was released on elektra records, once a label to trust but fell into bad practise with regard to not putting out any of the hotcha grooves from planet strange, a sixties brand if there ever was one had by 1977 found the true spirit of 'pioneerin' rock'n'roll once again...the true spirit of the doors first wax, loves first, MC5 and not to forget that magnificent pop weld from crabby appleton, all grooved forward injections of rocking and poetry slamming its way into consciousness of hep cats everywhere...because of the release date and the fact they're hooked up to CBGBs, access to promotion in euroland and touring they got picked up by the punk generation, at least the ones who partake of the leaf, which gave them the necessary push to glory and longevity of name if not work...as momentous as the first pere ubu in laying down new ground rules for psychedelic rocking (ubu psych was more prog avant but travelling similar early paths in disk release)...definite psychedelic dungeon vibes call out, offering new hope to all who were floundering in doldrums of despair waiting for the guiding light offering elevation(as indeed roky/tommys elevators had a decade before)...this copy is not newly tweaked and messed with to make it sound 'fuller' on the 'modern stereo set up', this is what was originally heard when cats were listening back in the day, a nice trebly edgy sound, rough bits still intact not smoothed into air conditioned states of prozac inertia...the cover shouts homemade, local combo makes a disk, which is a nice plus today though not noticed as such back awhiles, it just seemed new and economic of style, miles away from prog 'masterpiece' artwork...
...there can really be no doubt in any cats mind that this is one heavy beatnik trip into the midnight world of secret jam sessions in the dimly lit basements far from the square world, this is a missive from the other place, that far away land where its all happening for those that understand the message, that get the vibe and take nourishment...the first number has a hallmark of B-movie soundtrack stamped on it, an exploito drugged up beats/gangster flick, only this flick would have a very heavy avant garde feeling, film noir from some back alley studio where all the cats are on a substantial methadrine trip, a monochrome bill burroughs grime filled landscape where reality is illusive in metaphor...theres a school of thought this tune might be recorded around 1964 and its a different sound to the title track(2 versions)so this is quite a legitimate surmising...strange strings itselves are total mindblast, mid sixties free jazz/avant blowout, a cats got to think zappas monster magnet/AMM/godz tribal jams/deads heavy air experiments in 68/uptown NYC modal jazzers, the ra combo got it going on, building a sound catherdral containing many mansions, themselves in turn contain infinite rooms with the walls melting and reshaping, temporal imbalance as life force...a massive wigged out spaceways ride through to the outer reaches of wherever it is, god may well have been an astronaut...no lesser personage than john gilmore seems to remember this session bein taped at ESP-Disk laboratories around '66, more proof if any were still needed of that labels HEPnacious attitude...it all ends with ten minutes of fun with the tape, the creakin door opening and closing, allowing glimpses of a strung out centuries old jam session, grooving in slow motion, being sucked into the world of the never ending wobble...the wax originally appeared in '67 getting jazz snobs into a complete lather with their total non comprehension of what was going on around them, whilst no one else knew of its existence(or cared)......strange...
...this is an extra solid gone flipped out bagful from the ra combo, everyone grooving in a spaceways funky jam, with stretched hard bop, weirdo lounge plinking, rhythm box chugging away and a general mangling of the shards of sound letting loose and spraying the audience with enlightning beams from way off and way out saturn...a wigged voyage on the ever reliable rocket#9, this was originally put out as a single LP in the early 80s(when ra's star was in the ascendent once again with media trendies) with just three tracks, here we have the complete gig(italy 78), over two hours of explosive heavy jazzbo vibes from the creation of time to infinity, from planet to planet...hallucinogenic sounds from deep inside the wayward soul of benevolent space brothers who inhabit the creative thoughts of sun ra...tripped out big band splat oozing and weaving, going with the flow, total immersion in unknown possibilities, random connections enabling new thoughts for new patterns...what it is, is, what it is, its ra communicating with the earth-cats, bringing the knowledge and hope from his home planet to the everlasting multiverse, swinging with the hep vibes for beatnik layabouts and cafe hooligans and cellar-dwellers from out beyond the kingdom......3000...
...these two disks are a real good listen to bebe's six oh grooves from music hall ditties which are cool enough, to funky gimmick NOW sounds with a few stops inbetween...her voice is equally moody and playful and there really isn't a bad track throughout the whole set...some cats may not get too cozy first off with the charleston numbers but after a couple of spins bardot works her magic into it all...volume two is probably the place to start for heads who may need help getting agogo with this reclusive franco legend, with the incredible track 'contact' and other hep vibrations like 'gang gang' and 'harley davidson' but both volumes are recommended to the open minded...super-doopah stuff and shows todays fifth rate low end personality/celebs how to do it and DO IT GOOD......bebe...
...cats who got a bit of a rush off the first LP will dig this offering which is some studio jams and workouts without all the studio trickery beloved by this combo...this is the stripped down sound that was the foundation on which some of the greatest 60s pop was built...thinking of this disk as the bones on which the flesh of exotica will hang is the way forward with this brilliance in waiting......again...
...one of the great artpop LPs from the days when these kind of disks used to seep out to a widely disinterested public...hollywood jazzbo moves, high choral noise rising to envelope the listener and a myriad of instruments weaving their way around this tapestry of delights...lessons learnt while checkin' the fab4's revolver were put to good use and taken to the next level in the pop continium...theres more going on in this wax than could ever be mentioned in any amount of wise volumes of worditure for students of the popisphere of wonderment...cats could be well advised to get in a grooveacious state and dig it...life affirming to say the least... ...as a bit of an aside the above propaganda in the picture really says it all; for cats who have been checking such verbose speil for a moon or two will know thats the end of this combo right there and then...set up as the next big thing ain't going do it for no-one no time/any time...
...sunshine...
...cats who dig the vibe that come off wax like chad and jeremys cabbages LP/nirvanas swinging london efforts/van dyke parks first/pepper/firesign theatre early go rounds will get a massive floaty groove on with this lost biscuit from around '67 time by the boylan brothers, john and terry who later went onto do stuff for the asylum label that weren't always that necessary but this is a way different kettle of gumbo...mixing up sound fx collage with sunshine pop harpers bizarre and plenty of stoned humor this is one piece from the psychedelic tapestry that needs to be heard by all heads that get flipped with channel panning stereo wig outs...great for late night bong hits when mellow and groovy hang out lazily on the worn and torn carpet...
...louise is home...
...very very cool exploito number from curt boettcher/mike deasy plus the usual crew of hepster studio loons...put out under an alter ego of friar tuck for some reason lost in the quick haze from probably the day after this was conceived and knocked off...kind of like a psyched-out davie allen when davie was on a roll(some of his output really ain't so hot today as it was only meant to sucker some bread from the unsuspecting roobs, not actually listened to), fairly psychy with fx and tape manipulation, not an old surf instro wax put in a appropriate psychedelic patterned sleeve...this was aimed at suburban squares looking for that latest trend they been reading about in TIME magazine and the supermarket tabloids, trying to find out what it is about this hippy music that the kids seem to like so much...any squares picking this up was sure going get more than they bargained for as this is going to knock them across the room with all the swirly grooves emanating from the speakers...side one is four covers of recentish hits that're done in a 'far-out'style, dig the two channel stereo panning, real six-oh fun...side two is six tunes composed in the studio and given weirdo titles, with fx and drugged wordless sunshine pop vocals...the whole shebang is one flipped out wig lifter if listened to in the right acid lounge/nehru jacket frame of mind......rob the rich...
...marvelously chipper swinging 60's 'coming of age' comedy with groovy soundtrack with two cool combos...one on the way up and the other on the way to who knows where(bit unfair)...well nice period piece...go back to a more innocent(?) tyme......here we go...
...coming out from texas these cats didn't sound like too many from their home state...theres an expansiveness to the sound of the recording that gives this an otherworld feeling, a world of carefulness and slow motion, a world where its all possible, a dream like state of trancendental gloopy bubbles...first side has some string arrangements by the cat who enhanced/ruined forever changes which will help explain the otherworld vibe...their toughness of club playing gives a punch to the majestic sound, its very much upfront and demanding attention...sold well in euroland back in the day, showing those continental hep heads could dig some cool grooves even if the trees wax all bombed in the homelands...local fans at the time were not too pleased with the wax stateing that the urgency of the live playing had been lost but for cats who never saw them its the whole of the semi gothic sound that makes this so cool, in a way the fact not too many ever found out much about the combo at the time, leaving it a mystery enhances the vibes that come from digging the groovy wax...
...this first solo outting from 1970 is just about perfect with no rubbish filler...every track is stacked up with a right on positiveness tempered with reality...some of that realism/realistic outlook may seem out of date and somewhat cornball hokey in todays world where fakes and cats on the make obscure the big picture(just the way the downpresser man likes it-get others to do the dirty work keeping right thinking folks messed up and stopped from getting a handle on things)but this is still mighty truthful business of the first order...one of the outstanding wax from any decade and certainly better than whats creeping through the ether these days...just the right soundtrack for an afternoons cooling out keeping an eye on the situation...move on up and take nothing less than the second best?......the real deal...
...well, this is a goodly approximation of the experience groove emanating from 1972...late power trio madness, absolutely right on, nice and tasty, no head will think about copyism because its too obvious to worry about... nice guitaring racket all over and a nice soulful last track winding up a cool well recorded waxing...originally released in two mixes, one supposedly in the soul idiom the other in the more hopefull territory of the rock groove, muddleheaded thinking maybe but a precursor of what would become second nature by the nineties when remixing to catch the right pockets and empty out some cash became the norm for all record companies, big and small...
...studio cats get together and jam out some tunes for a quick hippy cash-in and unexpectedly for all concerned it turns out to be real good, not the usual rehash of old tracks or lame lounge acts getting the whole deal into one non-understanding mess...plenty of tape manipulation and channel hopping which is real cool and groovy scene and makes for chipper reefeded-out 6-oh listening...second side is for meditaion (first side is the freakout party) and is packed out with some funky sitar strumming and weirded out wordage for contemplation...bells and cymbals tinkle and clang and whistles wizz about the stereo spectrum making this as high on the rotation pile in any pad in flipsters paradise...the whole wax is so much better than the actual music scene its hoping to represent itself as, or at least parody...who else sounds like in any given moment the fugs/tim leary/folk-rock-acid-pop (insert fave '67 combo here)/dylan/beaver'n'krause/jeremy steig/zappa, and all knocked out in a few hours...a wild ride clyde and that cant be denied...
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