October 2007 pt.2

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Phil Ochs - Pleasures Of The Harbor [1967]

Going into the studio after Dylan's move into rock accompaniment and Sgt. Pepper's vast expansion of pop music, Ochs wanted to make a record that reflected all these trends, and he hired producer Larry Marks, arranger Ian Freebairn-Smith, and pianist Lincoln Mayorga — all of whom had classical backgrounds — to help him realize his vision. The result was Pleasures of the Harbor, his most musically varied and ambitious album, one routinely cited as his greatest accomplishment. Though the lyrics were usually not directly political, they continued to reflect his established points of view. His social criticisms here were complex, and they went largely unnoticed on a long album full of long songs, many of which did not support the literal interpretations they nevertheless received. The album was consistently imbued with images of mortality, and it all came together on the abstract, electronic-tinged final track, "The Crucifixion." Usually taken to be about John F. Kennedy, it concerns the emergence of a hero in a corrupt world and his inevitable downfall through betrayal. Ochs offers no satisfying resolution; the goals cannot be compromised, and they will not be fulfilled. It was anything but easy listening, but it was an effective conclusion to a brilliant album that anticipated the devastating and tragic turn of the late '60s, as well as its maker's own eventual decline and demise [Allmusic.com]


Track list;
01 - Cross My Heart
02 - Flower Lady
03 - Outside Of A Small Circle Of Friends
04 - I've Had Her
05 - Miranda
06 - The Party
07 - Pleasures Of The Harbor
08 - The Crucifixion

--

Style; Folk

Monday, October 29, 2007

Kousokuya - Live Gyakuryu Kokuu 逆 流 虚 空 1991.12.30

For those who enjoy the absurdist guitar holocaust blasts and astral projections of Fushitsusha, Les Rallizes Denudes, and High Rise, here's a live album by Kousokuya, the fourth member of that amazing league (oh yeah, and there's also those 3/3 guys). This album (track 1 much more so than track 2) suffers from stereotypical "live" sound--- not the wonderful lo-fi ness of the PSF/Squealer High Rise "Live" album, but rather just frustratingly nonoptimal mixing and EQing. But what are you going to do? It's still quality electric mayhem, punctuated by passionate, baffling, anarchic invocations.

Get it HERE.
(...and get their first studio album HERE.)

Fapardokly - 1966 - Fapardokly

A legendary LP, both for its (supposed) rarity and the appearance of future Mu-wizard Merrell Fankhauser. This is mid-60s pop/folkrock rather than the psych dealers might it hype it for; the hazy "Gone To Pot" excluded. Pretty classy stuff with traces of the Byrds and Beatles but also obvious remnants of an earlier, pre-Invasion pop era of Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers. Merrell's talent is on clear display even at this early stage, with each track being a finely tuned and completely realized pop song. Fave tracks include the dreamy opener "Lila" and the inspiredly weird "Mr Clock". Quite enjoyable all through as long as you don't expect Lemurian hippie psych magic. A retrospective Merrell & the Exiles LP titled "The Early Years 1964-67" exists on the American Sound label with the same lineup as the Fapardokly LP and collects earlier tracks.

Tracks

1 Lila
2 The Music Scene
3 Sorry For Yourself
4 Glass Chandelier
5 Tomorrow's Girl
6 Suzie Cryin'
7 Mr Clock
8 Gone To Pot
9 No Retreat
10 Too Many Heartbreaks
11 When I Get Home
12 Super Market
bonus cd tracks
13 The War
14 Yes, I Love You
15 Run Baby Run

Fapardokly were Merrell Fankhauser guitar, Bill Dodd lead guitar, John Oliver bass, and Dick Lee drums. The odd name being a combination of their surnames - or rather three of them plus that of Don Parrish, the original bass player.

But even odder is the fact that this band only plays on 3 out of the 12 tracks on the original album, 3 (maybe 4) tracks are by Aldridge, Fankhauser & Lotspeich, and 5 tracks are by Merrell & The Exiles or variants of that band.

The album is therefore a combination of various styles from early 60s beat to soft psychedelia to folk-rock recorded between 1964 and 1967 - Merrell Fankhauser being the only common element linking all the tracks. Despite this the original vinyl album has become an extremely collectable item - a psychedelic classic (apparently only 1000 copies were pressed and not many sold – hence it has become a real collectors’ item. I’ve seen an original sealed copy offered for sale at $500 !!).

The Aldridge, Fankhauser & Lotspeich tracks have a naïve psychedelic charm to them, while a couple of the Fapardokly cuts are harder edged – one (Gone To Pot) being an instrumental sibling of Eight Miles High.

The CD reissue includes three bonus tracks not released before - one, The War, by the Fapardokly band, another, Run Baby Run, by Merrell & the Exiles and a third, Yes I Love You which Merrell and Don Aldridge put together

Jeff is listed as playing on Sorry For Yourself, Suzie Cryin and Too Many Heartbreaks, all of which were released as singles by Merrell & the Exiles in 1964 and 1965. He is also credited as guitarist on the AFL tracks too although Don Aldridge and Gary Lotspeich do not recall him taking part in those sessions.

The cover of the CD reissue is the same as the original vinyl and the 1967 back cover is also included along with its' ill-advised photograph of the band wrapped in blankets! The CD also includes some sleevenotes by Merrell.

CD - Cover (Sundazed)

Get it here
fapardokly_-_1966_-__sundazed.rar

Saturday, October 27, 2007

V.A. - A Trip to Toytown (119 Top Toytown Tunes)

In the Spring of this year, Marmalade Skies gave us a section dedicated to that unique British Psych / Pop Sound known as 'Toytown'... since then, I've been working on getting them all together into one package. And with some help from friends around the world it's finally been completed, and here it is. The mp3 files are at 360kbps - except the half dozen or so that were supplied to me by others, they appear in their original bitrate - the artwork is at 400 dpi.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I do...

For more Info Visit the Marmalade Skies original page about "Toytown"
http://www.marmalade-skies.co.uk/toytown1.htm


DISC ONE
1. Excerpt from a Teenage Opera - Keith West
2. Sir Geoffrey Saved the World - Bee Gees
3. The Bitter Thoughts Of Little Jane - Timon
4. I Like My Toys - The Idle Race
5. Flowerman - Syn
6. Peter’s Birthday - World of Oz
7. Auntie Mary's Dress Shop - Tomorrow
8. Toyland - Alan Bown
9. Tales of Flossie Fillett - Turquoise
10. A Prologue to A Magic World - Ruperts People
11. Leave Me Here - The 23rd Turnoff
12. Ye Olde Toffee Shoppe - The Hollies
13. Mr. Small the Watch Repair Man - Kaleidoscope
14. Our Fairy Tale - The Herd
15. Glass House Green, Splinter Red - Kinsmen
16. Gilbert Green - Gerry Marsden
17. Baked Jam Roll in Your Eye - Timebox
18. (Here We Go Round) the Lemon Tree - The Move
19. William Chalker's Time Machine - The Lemon Tree
20. My Name is Jack - Manfred Mann
21. Melody Fayre - John Bromley
22. Uncle Joe, the Ice Cream Man - The Mindbenders
23. Tin Soldier Man - The Kinks
24. Little Bombardier - David Bowie
http://rapidshare.com/a_trip_to_toytown_-_disc_1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/a_trip_to_toytown_-_disc_1_part_2.rar


DISC TWO
1. After Tea - Spencer Davis Group
2. Dance 'Round the Maypole - Acid Gallery
3. Toffee Apple Sunday - Toby Twirl
4. Mr. Moody's Garden - Gilbert O'Sullivan
5. Sam - Keith West
6. The Sky Children - Kaleidoscope
7. Colonel Brown - Tomorrow
8. Laughing Man - John Carter & Russ Alquist
9. Alice - Jon Plum
10. Little Girl Lost and Found - Peter & the Wolves
11. Equestrian Statue - The Bonzo Dog Doo - Dah Band
12. (He's Our Dear Old) Weatherman - Mark Wirtz
13. See the Little People - Mike d'Abo
14. Jumbo - Bee Gees
15. Phenomenal Cat - The Kinks
16. Craise Finton Kirk Royal Academy Of Arts - Bee Gees
17. The Sound of the Candy Man’s Trumpet - Tony Hazzard
18. The Muffin Man - World of Oz
19. Town of Tuxley Toymaker - Billy J Kramer
20. Phoebe's Flower Shoppe - The Cortinas
21. The Cooks of Cake and Kindness - Californians
22. Victor Henry's Cool Book - The Smoke
23. Man in a Shop - Marmalade
http://rapidshare.com/a_trip_to_toytown_-_disc_2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/a_trip_to_toytown_-_disc_2_part_2.rar


DISC THREE
1. Skeleton and the Roundabout - The Idle Race
2. Jenny Artichoke - Kaleidoscope
3. Uncle Arthur - David Bowie
4. Spare a Shilling - The Bunch
5. Easy Street - Eddy Howell
6. Love and the Brass Band – Dave Christie
7. Harry the Earwig - Pete Dello & Friends
8. Fairyland - Pop Workshop
9. Looking Glass - The Bunch
10. Broken Toys - Broken Toys
11. Ice Cream Man - Kidrock
12. I Lied to Auntie May - The Neat Change
13. Goodbye Thimble Mill Lane - Peter Lee Stirling
14. When I'm Five - Beatstalkers
15. Three Jolly Little Dwarfs - Tomorrow
16. Dogs In Baskets - Geranium Pond
17. Weatherman - John Bromley
18. Cherrywood Green - Just William
19. Gingerbread Man - Mirror
20. Mandy Ann - World of Oz
21. Geraldine - Zion de Gallier
22. Mr. Poem - Mike Batt
23. Sadie and Her Magic Mr. Galahad - A New Generation
24. Mrs. Ward - The Idle Race
http://rapidshare.com/a_trip_to_toytown_-_disc_3.rar
http://rapidshare.com/a_trip_to_toytown_-_disc_3_part_2.rar


DISC FOUR
1. Persimmons Peculiar Shades - Watchmaker
2. Uncle Hartington - Peter & Gordon
3. Sandman - Neat Change
4. One Man Band - Pinkerton's Colours
5. Birmingham Brass Band - Bullring
6. Joe Organ & Co. - Barnaby Rudge
7. Room at the Top of the Stairs - Timothy Blue
8. Colour Sergeant Lillywhite - Consortium
9. Happy Castle - Crocheted Doughnut Ring
10. A Little Train Number - Kenny Everett
11. Mr. Jewel Went Away - Julian Starr
12. Sydney Gill - The Smoke
13. Harry the Keeper - Buggy
14. Princess And The Soldier - Richard Barnes
15. Mr. Nice Guy - Dragonmilk
16. Zebedy Zak - Cardboard Orchestra
17. Brother Jack - Barry Wigley
18. As For Marionettes - The Marianne
19. Zobo (1871-1892) - Marty Wilde
20. Little Lesley - Alan Bown Set
21. A Little Smile on Christmas Morning - The Annie Rocket Band
22. Christmas Will Be Around Again - Two and a Half
23. Hey Mr. Organ Grinder - Vehicle
24. Lydia - Blue Yogurt
http://rapidshare.com/a_trip_to_toytown_-_disc_4.rar
http://rapidshare.com/a_trip_to_toytown_-_disc_4_part_2.rar


DISC FIVE
1. Broken Hearts Brigade - Hammond Hazlewood
2. Rainbow Rocking Chair - Majority One
3. Morning Morgantown - Jude
4. Pegasus - The Hollies
5. Chocolate Buster Dan - Pandamonium
6. Admiral Sheer - Chris White
7. Trip on a Orange Bicycle - Orange Bicycle
8. Laughing Boy from Nowhere - Simon Dupree and the Big Sound
9. Flowers for My Friends - Joyce’s Angels
10. Barefoot And Tiptoe - Sweetshop
11. I Want to Go to the Overworld - Freddie & The Dreamers
12. Shine a Little Light into My Room - Jason Paul
13. Railway Jimmy - Barnaby Rudge
14. Good Old Sam - Vaughan Thomas
15. Shepherd Boy – Neil Holland
16. Annies Place - Gene Latter
17. Smoke, Smoke - Sgt Smiley Raggs
18. Constable Jones - The Decision
19. Miss Pinkerton - Cuppa T
20. Penelope - Smiley
21. Piccolo Man - The Flower Pot Men
22. Bric A Brac Man - Bill Nile & His Good Time Band
23. Threepence a Tune - The Laurels
24. Elephant Rider - The Hush
http://rapidshare.com/a_trip_to_toytown_-_disc_5.rar
http://rapidshare.com/a_trip_to_toytown_-_disc_5_part_2.rar


Thanks i. m. he (M.K.) for compiling,
uploading and let us make this compilation available to you !!!

Harvey 'the snake' Mandel - Live At The Matrix Club - Frisco 1968

Harvey 'the snake' Mandel - Live At The Matrix Club - Frisco 1968

Harvey Mandel became the original guitarist with Charlie Musselwhite, releasing the debut album Stand Back! in 1966. As a result of heavy airplay in San Francisco, they were invited to play The Fillmore by Bill Graham. Mandel moved to the Bay Area, regularly performing at the infamous club "The Matrix", where local favorites like Jerry Garcia, Elvin Bishop and Jefferson Airplane would sit in and jam.
On meeting the record producer Abe Kesh, Mandel was able to release his first solo album for Mercury Records entitled, Cristo Redentor in 1968, which included his version of "Wade in the Water."
In July 1969 he replaced Henry Vestine as lead guitarist in the blues band Canned Heat. Harvey remained with Canned Heat for nine months (until April 1970) with slide guitarist/vocalist Alan Wilson and singer Bob "The Bear" Hite. The custom of Canned Heat suggested that each member of the band acquired a nickname upon joining the band. Harvey's nickname, "The Snake," was given to him years before by keyboardist Barry Goldberg in Chicago (attributed to his cracked leather jacket and "snake-like guitar licks"). After several tours and three albums, including Future Blues, he was recruited by British bluesman John Mayall to be a member of the Bluesbreakers, recording the album, entitled USA Union together.
The band featured Mandel with Canned Heat bassist Larry "The Mole" Taylor, and violinist Don "Sugarcane" Harris. Mandel also appeared on another significant Mayall album, Back To The Roots, on which Eric Clapton and Mick Taylor also guested. He also toured with Taylor and Harris under the name "Pure Food and Drug Act" and released one album before Harris was assaulted, effectively ending his career.
He resumed his solo career, releasing several more albums for Janus Records in the 1970s including Baby Batter, The Snake, and Shangrenade, the record where Harvey employed 2-handed fretboard tapping. Mandel was one of the first rock guitarists to utilize this technique, years before Eddie Van Halen and Stanley Jordan.
One of Mandel's most significant session credits was his participation on Black and Blue, the 1976 album by The Rolling Stones.
Following his stint with the Stones, he became a busy session player, with groups such as Love and The Ventures, and opened for Jeff Beck on his Canadian tour as a power trio with Jimmy Haslip, bassist for The Yellowjackets. He relocated to Chicago in the late 1970s and continued to tour extensively, as well as supporting groups such as Roxy Music. In 1980, Mandel relocated to Florida as a member of the house band at Ron Wood's Miami nightclub, "Woody's," with Rolling Stones attendant saxophonist, Bobby Keys.
~BlackCatBone - Standin' At The Crossroads diary magazine


In the mold of Jeff Beck, Carlos Santana, and Mike Bloomfield, Mandel is an extremely creative rock guitarist with heavy blues and jazz influences. And like those guitarists, his vocal abilities are basically nonexistent, though Mandel, unlike some similar musicians, has always known this, and concentrated on recordings that are entirely instrumental, or feature other singers. A minor figure most known for auditioning unsuccessfully for the Rolling Stones, he recorded some intriguing (though erratic) work on his own that anticipated some of the better elements of jazz-rock fusion, showcasing his concise chops, his command of a multitude of tone pedal controls, and an eclecticism that found him working with string orchestras and country steel guitar wizards. Mandel got his first toehold in the fertile Chicago white blues-rock scene of the mid-'60s (which cultivated talents like Paul Butterfield, Mike Bloomfield, and Steve Miller), and made his first recordings as the lead guitarist for harmonica virtuoso Charlie Musselwhite. Enticed to go solo by Blue Cheer producer Abe Kesh, Harvey cut a couple of nearly wholly instrumental albums for Phillips in the late '60s that were underground FM radio favorites, establishing him as one of the most versatile young American guitar lions. He gained his most recognition, though, not as a solo artist, but as a lead guitarist for Canned Heat in 1969 and 1970, replacing Henry Vestine and appearing with the band at Woodstock. Shortly afterward, he signed up for a stint in John Mayall's band, just after the British bluesman had relocated to California. Mandel unwisely decided to use a vocalist for his third and least successful Philips album. After his term with Mayall (on USA Union and Back to the Roots) had run its course, he resumed his solo career, and also formed Pure Food & Drug Act with violinist Don "Sugarcane" Harris (from the '50s R&B duo Don & Dewey), which made several albums. In the mid-'70s, when the Rolling Stones were looking for a replacement for Mick Taylor, Mandel auditioned for a spot in the group; although he lost to Ron Wood, his guitar does appear on two cuts on the Stones' 1976 album, Black & Blue. Recording intermittently since then as a solo artist and a sessionman, his influence on the contemporary scene is felt via the two-handed fretboard tapping technique that he introduced on his 1973 album Shangrenade, later employed by Eddie Van Halen, Stanley Jordan, and Steve Vai.
~Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide


Harvey Mandel - 1968 - Live At The Matrix 1968
RapidShare Link
or
SendSpace Link

Posted by BlackCatBone @ Standin' At The Crossroads

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Whitewood (1970)

"One of the more obscure Rockadelics is a crude, unpolished gem that deserves time to manifest itself. A reissue of one of those "we'll put music to your lyrics" song-poem artefacts, but this one breathes with an eerie dementia unlike the usual laugh riots; imagine a suicidal Boa or Ant Trip Ceremony with some fire up their ass. Title track is an instant classic, and 2/3rds is local late 60s garage psych the way you want it. The instrumental fillers include a room-clearing polka-rock fusion that could have been left off, though it does add to the spooky desolate Viet Vet vibe, as does the new front cover design. The bonus track comes from an inferior second LP from this same unsuccesful songwriter." (Acid Archives)

Rockadelic Records, a respected psychedelic rock reissue label, has issued a majestic album entitled Whitewood (RRLP36), by a group of the same name. Whitewood is a straight reissue of a 1970 release from the fly-by-night Exotic label, out of New York. The lyrics of one side of the album were composed by a song-poet, himself a former big-band singer, who sent them to Exotic to be set to music so he could present material for his kids to use in their garage band. Apparently, the finished songs became the band's entire repertoire.

Exotic was run by a musician named Arthur Braun, who is credited as both producer and engineer of Whitewood as well as writer of the songs that fill the album's other side. Braun ran his company on such a shoestring that he didn't even bother printing record covers -- not even stock covers. The cover to Rockadelic's version (as seen to the right) was created especially for this reissue.

Whitewood is a pretty nutso album. The music is a crude psych-garage thud common to the period, its players even less proficient than the typical local rock outfit of the day. The Braun side features a brilliantly unept drums/harmonica workout. Lurking amidst the murky drang of the notes themselves lie tape glitches, crude splices and spoken interludes. The lyrics seem to represent a middle-aged man's clueless notion of what a young, hep garage band should be singing. If you wanted to give the lyricist the benefit of the doubt, you could think of his songs as parodies of pseudo-insightful heavy-rock, but frankly if you did I think you would be being overly generous. A few samples of his poetry:

Volcanic ... the rumbling sound of many evil
Volcanic ... creates the Eve that ate the apple

Your charm is like charisma
Your love is like charisma ...

The power that we all have
Is a fear of power ending ...

World of tomorrow, world of yesterday
World of his evil, world of dismay.

Strangely, the pipe-smoker who wrote those words was disappointed enough by the low quality of Braun's interpretation of them that he agreed to be "compensated" by having several more of his songs included on a future Exotic album. That album, The Arthur Braun Expedition, also includes songs by other song-poets, as well as more material by Braun and what seem to be a couple of traditional song-poem recordings. The Arthur Braun Expedition is a howler of the first order -- among other ridiculosities, the pronunciation of the title phrase of the song "Avant Garde" is so badly mangled that it wasn't until I finally checked the song titles that I came to realize that it was about something other than Ava Gardner!

Rockadelic's edition of Whitewood was pressed in a strictly limited quantity of 500 copies. Alas. their version is itself now believed to be out of print. (song poem music)

1) Intro
2) Volcanic Eruption
3) Charisma
4) Pandemonium
5) An Enduring Love
6) Let My Soul Free
7) New World
8) Whitewood
9) Hoo Ah Polka
10) Victim Of My Mind
11) Marlene's Blues
12) Another Second Chance [For The Victims]

DOWNLOAD

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Phil Ochs - I Ain't Marching Anymore [1965]

What a difference a year made for Phil Ochs — his 1964 debut, All the News That's Fit to Sing, gained him a reputation as the most promising songwriter to come out of the Greenwich Village folk scene since Bob Dylan, and 1965's I Ain't Marching Anymore proved he was every bit as good as his press clippings said. Ochs had grown by leaps and bounds as a performer in the space between the two albums, and where Phil sometimes sounded a bit clumsy and uncertain on his first LP, here he brims with confidence, and his guitar work — simple but forceful and efficient — didn't require another musician's sweetening as it did on All the News. Most importantly, while Ochs' songwriting was uneven but compelling in his first collection, I Ain't Marching Anymore finds him in consistently strong form throughout. The craft and the emotional weight of the material makes even the most dated material ("Draft Dodger Rag" and "Here's to the State of Mississippi") effective today, and a surprising number of the songs remain as potent (and sadly timely) today as in 1965, especially "Iron Maiden" and "That's What I Want to Hear." And if there are fewer jokes on this set, "Draft Dodger Rag" is funnier than anything on Phil's first album, and his cover of Ewan MacColl's "Ballad of the Carpenter" (as well as his adaptation of Alfred Noyes' "The Highwayman") revealed what a strong interpretive performer he could be. (His liner notes are pretty good, too; it's a shame he didn't write more prose.) Literally dozens of singer/songwriters jumped on the protest bandwagon after the success of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, but one would be hard-pressed to name one who made an album that works as well almost four decades later as I Ain't Marching Anymore [Allmusic.com]

Track list;
01 - I Ain't Marching Anymore
02 - In The Heat Of The Summer
03 - Draft Dodger Rag
04 - That's What I Want To Hear
05 - That Was The President
06 - Iron Lady
07 - The Highway Man
08 - Links On The Chain
09 - Hills Of West Virginia
10 - The Men Behind The Guns
11 - Talking Birmingham Jam
12 - Ballad Of The Carpenter
13 - Days Of Decision
14 - Here's To The State Of Mississippi

Second try [VBR]

Style; Folk

Bermuda Triangle - 1977 - Bermuda Triangle

Bermuda Triangle - 1977 - Bermuda Triangle

01. Nights in White Satin
02. Right Track
03. Dream On
04. Lark in the Morning
05. Free Ride
06. Standing Together
07. Louisiana
08. Night Train
09. Wind

Bermuda Triangle Band's wild psychedelic or delicately nuanced electric autoharp and transcendental vocals grew out of the late '60s Folk Rock scene.With an independent attitude,eccentric style and highly unusual instrument lineup,the group was unprecedented.Psychedelic Rock Autoharp was unknown, and there were very very few women playing bass guitar. The members are Roger Penney and Wendy Penney...
[wikipedia]

Ambitious late hippie folkpsych LP with lounge aspects, transcendental female vocals and elaborate keyboard arrangements/production, not bad at all for those into eclectic 1970s sounds. Unexpected covers of Aerosmith and Circus Maximus are a plus while the Moody Blues track could have been left off. Fine originals. Would make a neat double bill with Jade Stone & Luv. The second LP has been described as a less effective dreamy keyboard rock effort. Ex-Roger & Wendy. [PL]
~~~
Truly bizarre folk-psych album that's more enjoyable than a lot of "better" records. Two of the first three songs are weird loungy covers of "Nights In White Satin" and Aerosmith's "Dream On," neither of which sound like anything else on the album. For surprise value alone, "Dream On" works the better of the two, since the Moody Blues tune was dangerously close to lounge to begin with. Most of the other songs are full of fiddle-style violin and autoharp, the latter of which is often treated with phasing, flanging and other effects. It feels like the songs are at a normal speed but the backing tracks are sped up. Some of the melodies are pretty speedy too. Spastic, cymbal-heavy drumming adds another layer of intrigue. One song sounds like a twisted take on funk, another like a hoedown. Both the male and female vocals are agreeable and work well in the context of these strange songs. The closing "Wind" (the Circus Maximus song) is another total departure, again not resembling anything else on the album, and sounding uncannily like a Linda Perhacs outtake. This album is kind of a shock on first listen, because at least to these jaded ears it's not often I discover something so original and bizarre.
[lysergia.com]

Monday, October 22, 2007

Sugar Shack - Shotgun For Two (1995)

"Riffs, Riffs, and more Riffs. Can't get enough of these damn fine riffs! It's punchy, it's hard, it swings, it's catchy, and it'll leave you hummin' these tunes for days. "Sonic Sally", is a totally ferocious, dancing can o' whoop ass. You need this, don't even think about throwing your next party without it. You'll thank me...honest!" - Dr. Xavier Nefarious

Tracklist:
01. Steppin' Around
02. Leave It Alone
03. Fun,Fun,Fun...My Ass
04. When Yer Not Doin' Me
05. Not 21
06. Just That Way
07. Sonic Sally
08. She No Good
09. Yeah You'll Be Mine
10. Had Had You
11. The Mike Gunn Room
12. Let's Go To The Beach

"This Houston, Texas five-piece growls and roars with timeless, rebellious "we won't be kept down" rock and roll energy, kicking out the jams with one rollicking two-minute three-chord skuzz-rock anthem after another. Sugar Shack's not-quite-controlled chaos marries the sound of pre-punk '60s garage rock -- especially the acid-influenced dementia of Texas acts like the 13th Floor Elevators and the Moving Sidewalks -- with the angry, thunderous bite of early '80s Los Angeles punk outfits like the Misfits. Singer Mark Lockridge's raspy yelp is second to none, and guitarists Andy Wright and Kyle Otis's fuzzy guitar attack skips and dances frenetically. The stellar rhythm section -- comprised of Johnny Gibson's big bass boom and Stefanie Paige Friedman's high-speed snare drum pounding -- provides the stage for the rest of the band's circus antics." - Jesse Ashlock


"Recorded on April Fool's Day 1994, a tight, stompin' mix of punky garage rock is cooked up for you by Sugar Shack on their second album. Mark Lochridge adds a sneering Iggy/Stiv Bators vocal to the raucous, moving rock & roll thrown down by the rest of the band. The Stooges' influence is polished up and displayed front and center on Sugar Shack's adaptation of the Larry & the Loafers' classic, "Let's Go to the Beach." That track has the requisites of plenty of guitar, handclaps, and whacked-out/far-gone vocals, with a touch of Screamin' Jay Hawkins thrown in. Garage rock in the '60s had different eras, and this album draws not on the psychedelia that eventually appeared, but on the angry teenage groups of the earlier period. This band is a perfect fit for the Estrus label, which, by good fortune, they finally wound up on several years later. A celebration of the good rockin' life, even seen through the haze of a damaged memory (see "Not 21"), is the order of the day." - Jeremy Salmon

Mark Lockridge - vocals
Andy Wright - guitar
Kyle Otis - guitar
Johnny Gibson - bass
Stefanie Paige Friedman - drums

DOWNLOAD LINK

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Ora (UK) - 1969 - Ora

Ora (UK) - 1969 - Ora

Tracks :
01 - Seashore
02 - About You
03 - Deborah
04 - Whitch
05 - Venetia II
06 - You
07 - Fly
08 - Ladyfriend
09 - Are You Seeing
10 - Emma's Saga
11 - The Morning After The Night Before
12 - The Seagull And The Sailor
13 - Seashore
14 - No More Love
15 - Pomme
16 - Deborah
17 - It Was An Easy Legend
18 - Fly
19 - Thank God

Personnel:
- MARK BARAKAN gtr
- JULIAN DIGGLE drms
- JAMIE RUBENSTEIN vcls, acoustic gtr
- ROBIN SYLVESTER bs, keyb's, gtr
- CHLOE WALTERS gtr
- JON WEISS ld gtr

Wah Wah Records is proud to announce the reissue of the recorded works by this amazing folk-with-popsike-jazz-and-even-bossa UK band! Originally released on the Tangerine label, the Ora LP was also issued in the German Metronome label as "Knick Knacks", but gets its first vinyl reissue since it first came out on this 2LP set. Record 1 will feature the original Ora LP as it was first issued back in 1969, while record 2 is made up of previously unreleased in vinyl format top quality material by the band and will include tracks never issued before in any format that original band member James Rubinstein had in his personal archive. 25 must-have songs for anyone interested in UK folk/pop/psych ! !

It is an album of incredible beauty, recorded by some talented young artists, Here is an extract from the original 1969 press release:

Jamie Rubinstein, 18, leader, lead vocalist and guitarist with the group called ORA, wrote all the songs on their new LP. He arranged most of them. While making the album Jamie was studing for his GCE A Levels. This is the group's first release, a single is being planned.

Jamie and Robin Sylvester, 18, who plays bass guitar, piano, organ, and is co-arranger, are the main-stays of the four-piece group. The others, lead guitarist Jon Weiss and drummer Julian Diggle, are "floating" members. Jamie, Robin, and Julian had met at UCS (University College School) in Hampstead.

The Wah Wah edition will be housed in a gatefold sleeve that will respect the original artwork concept, graphically adapted to this new issue following the directions of Ora leader James Rubinstein. James himself signs the inner notes so you get an accurate first person told history of the band who would later become the legendary progressive rock group Byzantium.

This sensational band performed a most unique mixture of folk, jazz and pop sounds and recorded one of the most beautiful LPs coming from the UK in 1969. The original Tangerine issue was valued with four circles on Hans Pokora's "1001 Record Collector Dreams" book and an R3 "extremely rare" qualification on Vernon Joyston's "The Tapestry Of Delights", which means the Wah Wah 2LP set is definetely a very good chance to get the great recordings of this fab band into your vinyl collection and yet save some money for the university of your children! But you'll have to hurry for your copy since only 900 numbered copies are on sale and we do believe these should sell like hot bread! Otherwise expect To pay 500 sterling for an original UK Mint copy without the pressing defect (some original copies have a pressing defect on one song)

Get it here @192
http://rapidshare.com/Ora.rar

Buy it here (Wah-Wah records)
http://www.wah-wahsupersonic.com/html/lps.html

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Blossom Toes - 1969 - If Only For A Moment

Two years after their brilliant popsike debut, 1967's We Are Ever So Clean, Blossom Toes unleashed this extraordinary fusion of acid rock and prog, emphasizing how far they'd come since "the summer of love." Characterized by complex song structures and memorable guitar solos, and featuring a guest appearance on sitar from US folkie Shawn Philips, the album has gone on to become a major cult favorite.

TRACKS
Side 1
1. Peace Loving Man 4:50
2. Kiss of Confusion 4:37
3. Listen to the Silence 3:42
4. Love Bomb 8:34
Side 2
1. Billy Boo the Gunman 7:02
2. Indian Summer 5:50
3. Just Above my Hobby Horse's Head 2:50
4. Wait a Minute 5:38

Peace Loving Man/Above My Hobby Horses Head - 1969 - Marmalade 598 014


The Reviews

1
After the delightful debut "We Are Ever So Clean", the Blossom Toes changed their naive-side and became a remarkable underground act with tighter arrangements...The avant-garde experimentalism is still intact and the lyrics reflecting the social buried-dream of the sixties coda are so perfectly eclectic like little else in psychedelic-rock, yet not inaccessible...The magnificent spooky intro of "Peace Loving Man" and the linked "Kiss of Confusion" is so enduring in my memory as the first time I heard this, always discovering new things (new sounds) in these well-crafted songs; the fine "Listen To The Silence", an answer to Paul Simon's "Sound of Silence" delicacy (?) and the stunning couple of extended tracks, "Love Bomb" and "billy Boo The Gunman" or the sitar-driven joy of "Just Above My Hobby Horse's Head"... A CLASSIC!!! To everyone with an appetite for psychedelic music, this is a MUST (a nice pair!!! With "We Are Ever So Clean"!!!).

2

Released in 1969 , If Only For A Moment is the Blossom Toes second album .Their first "We Are Ever So Clean " was a flinty but enjoyable portion of British psychedelia but their second album see's the band take on more progressive and grungier tendencies .The four piece band had two rhythm and lead guitarists (Brian Goulding and Jim Cregan ) and three vocalists (the aforementioned two plus bassist Brian Belshaw, the drummer was Barry Reeves).This leads to some fascinating interplay and harmonising but also means the music tends to be over elaborate at times -"Indian Summer" even reminds me of Spinal Tap on occasions -but overall the album is a laudable mixture of bluesy acid rock with a west coast psychedelic timbre.
The music recalls Captain Beefheart , Wishbone Ash , Frank Zappa, and even early Led Zeppelin to these ears but tracks like "Just Above My Hobby Horses Head" evokes the Beatles with it's plangent sitar courtesy of US folkie Shawn Phillips. Poli Palmer adds flute ,percussion and that sixties staple vibes on several tracks. It's certainly complex music , with intricate interwoven guitar lines and like I said it can be a little too fussy at times but on tracks like "Peace Loving Man" , "Wait A Minute" and "Listen To The Silence " it all gels very nicely and the lyrics about the usual late sixties things- social unrest, anti war bluster, and why cant we all just live together nicely aren't too toe curling.
This edition is expanded with a informative booklet and extra tracks. The single "Postcard" pre-dated this album and is infinitely poppier -like that debut album and is a bit of a relief after all the convoluted material on the album proper." Everyone's Leaving me Now" -a B side -is a tremendous jazz inflected number but "Ever Since A Memory" and "Nobody But" are demo's and should have remained so. Un-released single "New Day" featuring label mate Julie Driscoll and Reggie King on vocals is a tad overwrought with multi-banked voices and some hideous caterwauling yet I still quite like it.
This album was a much sought after rarity and it's easy to see how certain people would find it an intoxicating work but overall it falls short of classic status for me. The playing is exemplary , particularly the guitar work ,but the song writing is patchy and it does sound rather dated at times. If Only For A Moment is an easy album to admire but a much harder one to love .You should hear it but is more likely to have you nodding sagely than gushing like a overheated chocolate fondue.

3

I was about 13 (so it was probably 1969 or maybe 1970) and we'd let a couple of rooms out to students. One of these brought with her some records, and I borrowed some of these and taped them on my reel-to-reel machine. I don't remember all of them, but two of them at least went on to become firm favourites. Fairport Convention's "What We Did On Our Holidays" I'll deal with on a later week, but this week's album is Blossom Toes' 1969 classic (IMO) "If Only For A Moment".
This was the second album by Blossom Toes, a band signed to ex-Yardbirds manager Giorgio Gomelsky's Marmalade label. Stable mates there included Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger and the Trinity, John McLaughlin, and two songwriters (Graham Gouldman and Kevin Godley) who had written hits for The Hollies and Herman' Hermits and later formed 10CC.
Blossom Toes' first album, "We Are Ever So Clean" was a delightful slice of British pop psychedelia, but for their second album they went "heavy" and "progressive" (although those terms weren't really being used yet in that sense). A four-piece, with three lead singers and twin lead guitars, I like to think that they predated Wishbone Ash and their ilk.
The first track on the album, "Peace Loving Man", is a raucous anti-war bombast that hasn't really aged very well but the remainder of the album is subtle, imaginative and I still play it today. I finally managed to find it on CD as a Japanese , so I've retired both my vinyl copies - it was a pretty rare LP at the best of times, and a few years later I bought a spare copy secondhand in case anything happened to my original.
They broke up after this album although they formed the nucleus of a band called "B B Blunder" who made one really rotten album ("Workers Playtime", with a cover parodying the Radio Times) and then split. Jim Cregan later joined Family, and then went on to play lead guitar for Linda Lewis (remember her?) and Rod Stewart. I think he's still with him. Brian Godding became a jazzer, playing with Centipede and various Keith Tippets outfits, and I don't know what happened to Brian Belshaw or Barry Reeves. Finally, they reformed briefly to provide the backing to one of the standout tracks on Julie Driscoll's "1969" album (that's it's title, not the year of release), "Break Out".

Get it here

blossom_toes_-_1969_-__if_only_for_a_moment.rar

Hampton Grease Band - 1971 - Music To Eat

Hampton Grease Band - 1971 - Music To Eat

Link 1 @320

Link 2 @320

Link 3 @320

Tracklist:

1. Halifax — 19:39

2. Maria — 5:30
3. Six — 19:29

4. Evans — 12:28

[disc 1 time: 57:06]

1. Lawton — 7:48

2. Hey Old Lady / Bert's Song — 3:19

3. Hendon — 20:13

[disc 2 time: 31:20]

[total time 88:26]

Reviews
1

"This album has been spoken glowingly of on the Zappa newsgroup several times over the years, so when I found a cheap CD copy I grabbed it, sound unheard. Having no idea what to expect, I popped disc one into the car CD player on the way home and spent the next hour trying to decide if I had just lucked into a gem of an album, or if I had just flushed $15 down the toilet.The liner notes start out by proudly proclaiming that this was the second worst selling LP in Columbia Records' history. It's easy to see why - Bruce Hampton's voice is a very acquired taste, and the music behind it shifts between Zappaesque complexity and humor to Beefheart-style weirdness and dada to the Grateful Dead's psychedelic jams to the Grease Band's own unique sound. One minute the music will sound very amateurish, the next minute they'll be tearing through a dual-guitar instrumental assault that most prog bands would love to be able to play. Odd time signatures and hot jams abound.
Hampton's vocals sound like he might be channeling the good Captain. The lyrics are usually stream-of-consciousness, often taken from found sources. For example, to come up with lyrics for the first track, the band opened an encyclopedia at random and hit the entry on Halifax, which inspired the title and lyrics about six thousand miles of graded roads, radar stations and the cleanliness of the air. The opening lyrics of "Hendon" come from the warning label on a can of spraypaint. Hampton's delivery resembles Beefheart's gruff style, but whereas the Captain sounds like an old blues singer, Bruce sounds like a lunatic. He definitely adds color to the music.
The album was originally going to be made up of just the three 20 minute tracks, but the record company asked for some shorter songs, hoping for something a little more radio-friendly. The closest they got was "Hey Old Lady/Bert's Song" and "Maria". The former is an upbeat rocker with lyrics about bag ladies, life and death, the latter is a catchy little number about young Spanish kids in love. But even those were too weird for singles, (not to mention "Maria" containing phrases like "wish that she would touch my bone"), so the existing tracks were just released as a double album and marketed as a comedy record.
As bizarre as it is, this album contains a ton of good music and I keep finding myself listening to it over everything else I've bought recently. But this definitely isn't an album for everyone. Fans of Zappa, Beefheart and the jazzier end of prog (particularly Canterbury) will probably enjoy it, if they can get past the, um, "unique" vocals."

review by Bob Eichler

2

"A classic! Their music combines the vocal-style of Captain Beefheart with the lyrical-humor of Frank Zappa (Harold and Bruce appear on Zappa's Lumpy Gravy), and the complex American (bluegrass, southern jazz, New York and San Francisco avant-garde) instrumental interplay of The Grateful Dead. In fact, the guitar interplay between both guitarists is really unique and fascinating. They trade off inventive jazz licks, chords, and avant-garde noise rarely heard on "jazz-rock" albums (Trey Anastasio of Phish may have been influenced by this album around the time Junta was composed). The 20-minute songs are half-composed/half-improvised and have tons of parts. The shorter songs are also excellent, and vary from an improvisation to catchy 70's rock. This 90-minute monster has no filler, every minute offers top-notch musicianship, and composition (whether improvised or actually composed)."

review by Steve Hegede

Friday, October 19, 2007

Hp Lovecraft - Hp Lovecraft II

Hp Lovecraft - Hp Lovecraft II(1968)

Tracks :
1. Spin, Spin, Spin (3:27)

2. It's About Time (5:23)
3. Blue Jack of Diamonds (3:13)
4. Electrallentando (6:39)
5. At the Mountains of Madness (5:02)
6. Mobius Trip (2:48)
7. High Flying Bird (3:27)

8. Nothing's Boy (0:44)

9. Keeper of the Keys (3:12)
10. Anyway That You Want Me (Bonus) (2:46)
11. It's All Over For You (Bonus) (2:36)

Line-up/Musicians :

- George Edwards / rhythm guitar, lead guitar, bass, lead vocals
- David Michaels / keyboards, clarinet, recorder, lead vocals
- Jerry McGeorge / bass, vocals
- Tony Cavallari / lead guitar, vocals
- Michael Tegza / drums, vocals

Review from allmusic :
H.P. Lovecraft was an American psychedelic rock group of the 1960s and 1970s named for the famous horror writer. Originally formed in Chicago, Illinois in 1967, they relocated to San Francisco, California the following year.
Their self-titled 1967 LP was an impressive debut, featuring strong originals and covers of early compositions by Randy Newman and Fred Neil, as well as one of the first underground FM radio favorites, "White Ship." Their second album, H.P. Lovecraft II, was a much more sprawling and unfocused work, despite some strong moments. A spin-off group, Lovecraft, released a couple LPs in the '70s that bore little relation to the first incarnation of the band.

Enjoy..!!
RapidShare or SendSpace

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Apple - 1969 - An Apple a Day [160k]

Apple was a British psychedelic rock band. The band was founded in Cardiff in 1968 by Rob Ingram (guitar) and Jeff Harrad (Bass). They've released a single LP in 1969, titled An Apple A Day. The album was a commercial failure, and the band ceased to exist shortly after its release. However, during the subsequent years several tracks from the LP (most notably The Otherside(Harrad)) were dubbed classics of British psychedelic rock by critics, making An Apple A Day one of the most sought-after British psychedelic rarities.

The original vinyl version (released by Page One Records) is now extremely hard to find. A reissue by Repertoire Records was released in 1994, which included several bonus songs (those being early mono versions of some of the album's tracks) [Wikipedia]

I don’t have the bonus tracks but only the 12 originally tracks from the LP…

Track list;
01.Let's Take A Trip Down The Rhine
02.Doctor's Rock
03.The Otherside
04.Mr. Jones
05.The Mayville Line
06.Queen Of Hearts Blues
07.Rock Me Baby
08.Buffalo Billycan
09.Photograph
10.Psycho Daisies
11.Sporting Life
12.Pretty Girl Love You

Link

Style; Psychedelic

Tombstone Valentine - 1999 - Hidden World

One of the first releases on Aether Records was the Hidden World debut (vinyl) lp by a quintet with a 60's/90's West Coast sound. Hidden World was mostly recorded at home on a Tascam 238 8-track and features 4 compositions: the title track and the magnificent "Green Sky Night" are 2 pearls of modern West Coast psych rock with Grace Slick-like female lead vocals, wah wah guitar, Country Joe & The Fish type organ patterns and strange synth noises, while the other 2 numbers are purely instrumental and vaguely sound like one of the space jams of the Grateful Dead with Cork Marcheschi of 50 Foot Hose guesting on weird electronic noises. Especially the side-filling "Elastic Reality" is an impressive, long example of avant-garde psychedelics for the next millenium.

Outstanding lp, long time since I heard a release that balances so neatly between tradition and experiment, and creates something new under the sun.
(Crohingawell, Belgium)

source : http://www.tombstonevalentine.com/index.html

Download It Here :

http://rapidshare.com/files/63264977/tombstone_valentine.part1.rar

http://rapidshare.com/files/63265366/tombstone_valentine.part2.rar

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Agamenon - 1975 - Todos Rien De Mi

Hippie group from Madrid, this is no doubt one of the most acid psychedelic rock album recorded in Spain in the 70's. It is their sole album, originally released in 1975 on the Explosion label and a very rare and collectable item. No one knew anything about the group members until now, it had been even rumoured to be some Argentinian guys living in Spain...but no, the group was formed by 2 Spanish female and 4 male and the brainhead was Carlos Garcia, who sadly passed away not long ago and to whom this reissue is dedicated. 10 tracks, 8 of them in English and 2 in Spanish, all originals and fantastic; there's lots of heavy acid fuzz guitar here, probably the wildest fuzz recorded in Spain ("Todos rien de mi", "Send me" or "I need money"), and also some great sunshine psych-pop ("Cuco go fly", "Al salir el sol"), and it's all very well packed with some of the best multi-vocal harmonies you can find in a Spanish record ever.

A truely fantastic album that we strongly recommend!!!

This first ever reissue comes with an insert with some never-seen-before pictures and infos about the band, plus a repro of a very rare band poster.

Get it here

Agamenon_-_1975_-__Todos_Rien_De_Mi___psych_.rar

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

V.A. - Circus Days

Circus Days #1 & 2
Pop-Sike Obscurities, vol.1 1966-1970
Pop-Sike Obscurities, vol.2 1967-1970
Circus Days #3
UK Psychedelic Obscurities, vol.3 1966-1970
Circus Days #4 & 5
UK Psychedelic Obscurities, vol.4 1967-1972
More Obscure Pop-Sike, vol.5 1966-1970
Circus Days #6
Psychedelic Obscurities, vol.6 1966-1972

Click on titles for tracklists


Download Links :

Set One (for Free users)
(Direct Downloads)
http://rapidshare.com/V.A._-_Circus_Days.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/V.A._-_Circus_Days.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/V.A._-_Circus_Days.part3.rar
http://rapidshare.com/V.A._-_Circus_Days.part4.rar
http://rapidshare.com/V.A._-_Circus_Days.part5.rar

Set Two (for Premium users)
http://rapidshare.com/V.A._-_Circus_Days.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/V.A._-_Circus_Days.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/V.A._-_Circus_Days.part3.rar
http://rapidshare.com/V.A._-_Circus_Days.part4.rar
http://rapidshare.com/V.A._-_Circus_Days.part5.rar
A Small Request to premium users :
Please Do Not download the Direct Links set...as the Direct Downloads Traffic is limited...
You don't need it after all.
Leave this traffic for the free users.


Enjoy !!!