How To Be a Rock Band, with Mick Farren & The Deviants, Hyde Park 1969.

Y’know, casual misogyny aside (oh Mick, you freakin’ dimwit), this is pretty much what I want to see/hear on any given occasion, right?

It’s like that 1970 footage of the MC5, forcibly boiled down to the level of blithering, sub-human caveman dementia. Utter fucking ruination of civilised ideals, channeled through a bunch of Ladbroke Grove drop-outs, a primitive fuzzbox and amp stacks that probably weigh more than their entire home & possessions.

For most of it, they seem to have forgotten what language is, never mind ‘notes’.

So beautiful it makes me weep.

Look out for the Paul Bartel-meets-Ming The Merciless, ‘I’m the critic from the Evening Standard’ guy towards the end of the first video, appearing unmoved.

If you like this, well… god help you, but maybe you’d enjoy my biker rock comp.

Labels: 1960s, fuzz is all, punk rock, The Deviants, UG enthroned, videos

Deathblog:
Ellie Greenwich, 1940 - 2009

I seem to be a few days late with the news of Ellie Greenwich’s passing, but I was sad to read about it this morning on Everett True’s blog.

As is often the way with songwriters, I guess I’ve gotten to know Greenwich’s name just through reading it hundreds of times in brackets after song titles on record sleeves, and I don’t really know that much re: what she was all about beyond the realm of writing great songs. Her life, personality etc largely remain a mystery to me, so I will leave thoughts on that for other, more informed writers.

I did read a little bit about her last month though, in “Out of his Head”, Richard Williams’ book about Phil Spector. From that, I learned about her pivotal contribution to Spector’s oeuvre, not only through writing the lion’s share of the most iconic songs (usually in collaboration with her husband Jeff Barry and/or Spector), but also through co-producing sessions, vocal coaching and goodness knows what else, credited or otherwise.

In addition to the Spector records, Greenwich and Barry also wrote some of the best ever Shangri-las songs for Shadow Morton, and provided material for The Dixie Cups, The Shirelles and The Four Pennies, surely earning them a preeminent place amongst the architects of the girl group sound/aesthetic.

Ellie Greenwich also wrote hits for Manfred Mann, The Monkees and Tommy James & The Shondells, and pre-empted fellow Brill Building writer Carole King by cutting several albums of her own songs in the late ‘60s. She is also often credited with ‘discovering’ Neil Diamond, and provided Elkie Brooks with her biggest hit, but let’s not hold that against her.

Obituaries for songwriters are often a depressing business, framed as “hey, looks like the guy who wrote HIT SONG X just died”, with the implied tragedy being that they probably spent their whole life writing thousands of other songs that nobody much cared about, grinding their teeth as people walked past whistling HIT SONG X at them.

No such problems for Ms. Greenwich. Looking at her catalog of songs on the Songwriters Hall of Fame website, I put together the following list of songs I know/like that she gets a writing credit for (plus I few others that I just thought had cool titles). And I’m sure you’ll agree, the pile of capital letters below makes a stronger case for her legacy than any amount of supercilious blather:

(AND) THEN HE KISSED ME
ALL GROWN UP
ANOTHER BOY LIKE MINE
BABY I LOVE YOU
BE MY BABY
CHAPEL OF LOVE
CHRISTMAS (BABY PLEASE COME HOME)
DA DOO RON RON
DO WAH DIDDY
GIRLS CAN TELL
GIVE US YOUR BLESSING
HANKY PANKY
HE AIN’T NO ANGEL
HE TELLS ME WITH HIS EYES
HEAVEN ONLY KNOWS
I CAN HEAR MUSIC
I DIDN’T MEAN TO HURT YOU
I WISH I NEVER SAW THE SUN SHINING
I WISH IT WOULD RAIN ALL SUMMER
LEADER OF THE PACK
MARVIN
MAYBE I KNOW
MY MAMA DON’T LIKE HIM
OUT IN THE STREETS
RIGHT TRACK, WRONG TRAIN
RIVER DEEP, MOUNTAIN HIGH
RUN RUN RUNAWAY
SHE HANGS OUT
SUNSHINE AFTER THE RAIN
THAT BOY IS MESSIN’ UP MY MIND
THINGS THAT YOU SAY
TODAY I MET (THE BOY I’M GONNA MARRY)
TRAIN FROM KANSAS CITY, THE
VALLEY OF DESPAIR, THE
WAIT TILL MY BOBBY GETS HOME
WALKING IN THE RAIN
WHAT'S A GIRL SUPPOSED TO DO
WHY DO LOVERS BREAK EACH OTHER’S HEARTS
WHY DON’T THEY LET US FALL IN LOVE

Goddamn, that woman could write a tune.

Mp3s:

The Crystals – Da Doo Run Run
Bob B. Sox & The Bluejeans – Why Do Lovers Break Each Others Hearts?
The Ronettes – Be My Baby
The Shangri-Las – Out in the Streets
The Shop Assistants – Train From Kansas City
The 5678s – Hanky Panky
Maureen Tucker – (And) Then He Kissed Me
The Ronettes – Walking in the Rain
The Ramones – Baby I Love You

Labels: 1960s, deathblog, Ellie Greenwich, girl groups, Phil Spector, pop, songwriters, The Shangri-Las

Cambodian Rocks on the BBC

Hey, remember all that great Cambodian Rocks stuff? Well it was brought to my attention today that last week the ever-reliable Radio 4 broadcast a quick documentary on the '60s Cambodian rock scene that produced those amazing sounds, and the predictably terrible fate that befell its participants after the Khmer Rouge seized power in 1975.

Obviously that's a LOT of context and history and explanation to try to fit into thirty minutes, so it's not the in-depth account that the subject probably merits, but it's great that the BBC took the time to make a program about such a marginal area of culture in the first place. God bless public service broadcasting.

It's particularly nice to get a bit of background on Ros Sereysothea, the absolutely extraordinary vocalist who fronts most of my favourite Cambodian Rocks tunes, and the ubiquitous Sinn Sisamouth, a guy who is described at one point as "Cambodia's Dylan", presumably because the appeal of his music makes more sense if you can follow the lyrics. A guy who played some of the kick-ass lead guitar on the songs, and managed to survive, is also briefly interviewed. No word though sadly on the identity of the still anonymous howling, cookie monster-voiced James Brown dude who turns up on some of the wilder cuts on the original compilation.

Although the documentary doesn't dwell on it, it is inevitably chilling and very upsetting to hear rumours about what happened to some of these musicians in the "work camps" post-'75. Whatever instances of ignorance and obscenity we may have to address in our lives on a daily basis, let's at least be thankful that the idea of people being tortured to death for the crime of making cool pop music is rarely one of them.

On the BBC iPlayer until next Tuesday.

STILL one of the best songs ever recorded:

Ros Sereysothea - I'm Sixteen

And here's a little something from the aforementioned anonymous howling dude:

Cambodian Rocks Track 8

Labels: 1960s, BBC, Cambodian Rocks, radio, Ros Sereysothea

Alex Chilton & The Box Tops on "Disc-o-Teen Halloween Special", 1967.



What can I say; I wish TV was like this 24 hours a day.

Labels: 1960s, Alex Chilton, halloween, the Box Tops, TV, videos, weirdness

Earth to Gordon Waller: WTF?


Peter and Gordon (right) stepping out, in happier times..?


Gordon Waller – Rosencrans Boulevard

A total curveball, this song unexpectedly leapt out at me from the end of side # 2 of the utterly excellent second volume of the Rubble compilation series (“Pop-Sike Pipe Dreams”), as I was hanging some pictures in my new room.

For whatever reason, I’ve never paid much attention to it on previous spins of the LP, trapped as it is sounding rather square amid a giddy wealth of fuzz guitar madness and dead-cert freakbeat gear, but... my god. What an extraordinary, inexplicable, misguided pop venture it is, carelessly splitting the difference between “audacious” and “utterly fucking insane”.

A few seconds intensive research reveals that Gordon Waller was one half of Beatles-affiliated lightweight pop duo Peter & Gordon, who disbanded in 1968. According to Wikipedia:

“Afterwards, Waller attempted a solo career with little success, releasing one record, ‘..and Gordon’. On this album Gordon used New York based group White Cloud featuring Teddy Wender on keyboards. He also appeared in a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat as Pharaoh, a performance that he reprised on the LP.”

None of which really does a lot to prepare one for ‘Rosencrans Boulevard’.

Point one is: were it not on a compilation CD of British stuff, I’d never have guessed this track had originated anywhere except from the cosmic pop wonderland of late ‘60s LA, and indeed I would be extremely surprised if it was recorded in the UK. The song opens with a swell of symphonic/mariarchi bombast worthy of a Jimmy Webb production, which is appropriate, as a swift search on AMG reveals that it is indeed a Jimmy Webb composition, although apparently not one he ever managed to turn into a hit. So, given the presence of his trademark sound, I’m assuming he arranged/produced this version of it too, although Waller's rendition doesn’t merit an entry on AMG, or in Wikipedia’s list of Webb songs.

This is a shame in a sense – I think I liked the song better back when I thought it was some absolutely bugfuck English imitation of a Jimmy Webb record, strung out as the whole thing is with an inexplicable vibe of slightly scrappy Tin Pan Alley lunacy, of some doomed pop svengali’s celestial ambitions going waaaaaay overboard, crashing like an upturned salad bowl in the midst of a record label buffet.

It’s not surprising it wasn’t a hit. The song’s various distinct sections stack up with no apparent rhyme nor reason, none of them offering much in the way of a pleasing melody, central theme or connecting framework, whilst the mood remains desperate, decadent and somewhat hysterical throughout. Even these days, you couldn’t work this one onto one of those kitsch-cool ‘60s crooner dinner party albums – it would just bum everybody the fuck out. The damn thing’s got no tune! A headscratcher for sure, ‘Rosencranz Boulevard’ seems less of an attempt to score a hit, more like some natural, unstoppable outpouring of… something.

After a few seconds of unmistakable Webbery by way of introduction, the song swiftly gives way to a kind of epic Americana travelogue reminiscent of Van Dyke Parks ‘Song Cycle’, until our protagonist finds himself drawn to Hollywood, grounded on the titular Boulevard, propelled by fate into the midst of a doomed relationship with some spectacular, yet no doubt fatally flawed and ultimately unworthy, female.

“You know I never loved her anyway, I just used her over and over”, confesses Waller in portentous, Walker-like tones, before a swift change of pace hits, stabbing strings plunging us into an arena of overwrought metaphysical hysteria worthy of ‘Scott 4’, as Gordon is wracked with guilt regarding his unsatisfactory conduct in this tempestuous liaison.

Naturally, the only thing to follow that with is a car chase, so here we go: “the girl was half crazy, the way she drove her little car”, “doing ninety in a thirty mile zone!” “And she blamed me when she got a ticket”, Gordon adds wistfully, the drama concluded.

So far, pretty fucking breathtaking actually, but it’s only then, in the song’s concluding act, that the genius/madness barricades are thoroughly breached, as Gordon recalls that “she was a stewardess, you know”, “shot down on a non-combatant mission!” For a second, I thought that might be some kind of sly Leonard Cohen-esque double entendre, but I think Jimmy & Gordon actually mean it literally, gratuitously raising the spectre of Vietnam whilst they’re about it.

Music swells to an apocalyptic crescendo, as we leave our hero, wracked with confusion, driving drunk down Rosencrans Boulevard, asking “why did I do it??”, before disappearing forever into a compressed panorama of America reduced to a chintzy recording studio funfair, never to be heard from again.

Total running time: 2 minutes 44. Take that, ‘Macarthur Park’!

Do you think perhaps if someone had just thought to approach Jimmy Webb or Gordon Waller or whoever else was at the controls here, to ask “do you want to talk about it?”, we wouldn’t have this song?

Hooray for emotional repression and it’s deranged artistic consequences.

Labels: 1960s, Gordon Waller, Jimmy Webb, pop, song reviews

A Brief Tribute to Billy Fury.

One of the best gigs I went to in the whole of 2008 (and boy did I ever go to some good ones), and one of my best memories of last summer overall, was Calvin Johnson, playing at a youth club in Finsbury Park.

I won’t talk about the show in great detail, cos that’s not the point of this post, (although if you go to the Upset The Rhythm website and refresh the banner at the top enough times, you’ll be rewarded with a shot of myself and various pals looking rapturous in the audience), but: go see him!

During one of his always entertaining digressions, Calvin started talking about how he’d always wanted to play in Liverpool when touring with the Beat Happening, but had never been able to, until now. “You see, one of my greatest musical heroes came from Liverpool”, he said. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the audience respond with psychic eye-rolling smileys. He kept going on about it though, talking about what a great, musical city Liverpool is, and how dubious UK promoters had always discouraged him from going there for one reason or another…. until finally he exploded; “I mean, BILLY FURY came from Liverpool!”

I think I was still laughing my ass of at this classic reversal-of-expectation, as Calvin – obvious a sincere and very big fan - explained that he’d gone to visit a statue of Billy Fury when in Liverpool a few days previous (and what a statue – see above), and proceeded to rhapsodise about the pure genius of the lyrical phrasing on one of Fury’s b-sides (sadly I forget which one).

If I was familiar with the name Billy Fury at all at this point, it was as one of the memorably nom-de-plumed stable of prefabricated late 50s/early 60s pre-Beatles British pop idols managed by archetypal gay Denmark St. impresario Larry Parnes (also see Johnny Gentle, Marty Wilde etc.). Runners up to Cliff Richard basically, playing watered down rock n’ roll and Tin Pin Alley standards in an ‘all round entertainer’ mould to square seaside theatre crowds.

Count the unfair assumptions in the preceding sentence and despair I guess, but nonetheless, that’s the way canonical rock history has judged these guys: look elsewhere punks, nothing to see here.

Reinforcing this impression, I next came across some references to Fury last month, whilst reading Ray Davies’ superb and bizarre autobiography/paranoid ego fantasy ‘X-Ray’ (read it, read it, read it). Early in their career, Ray relates, The Kinks were assigned a fastidious git of a tour manager, to drill the unruly teenage rockers into a shapely entertainment unit. This guy, it seems, was particularly keen on talking about how he used to work for Billy Fury, and what a consummate entertainer and gentleman Billy used to be, in contrast to the disobedient young thugs he was now forced to deal with.

Reprimanding Dave Davies for absent-mindedly pissing out of the window on one occasion, it seems this tour manager, when challenged, exclaimed that not only did the sainted Billy Fury restrict his pissing to designated toilets like a decent human being, but, IN FACT, Billy Fury was such a professional that he never remembered him going to the toilet AT ALL.

Cue hilarity from The Kinks, as the generation gap widens further, and Billy Fury’s professionalism becomes a running joke amongst them forever more as a procession of grown ups try to tell them how to behave.

But, as a slightly overenthusiastic contributor to Billy’s Wikipedia page puts it, “Fury's fans and contemporaries in music knew he was a rocker and the real thing musically”, and, curiosity suitably piqued by these contrasting references, I’ve recently been listening to ‘Billy Fury: The EP Collection’ on See For Miles records. And I’m afraid to say, I’m going to have to side with Calvin and the Wikipedia guy, because, genital-less anti-rock n’ roller or not, some of these Billy Fury tracks absolutely kick ass!

Ok, there are some lame songs (and a ‘Christmas Prayer’), but, especially compared to the morass of sloppily recorded MOR dreck that comprised much of pre-Beatles commercial British pop, most of these cuts are just extraordinary in their shining, slinky, fulsome awesomeness, comparable to the contemporary work of Sam Cooke, Buddy Holly, Phil Spector, Elvis… etc.

Check it out:

Wondrous Place
Saved
Play It Cool
Don’t Jump

If I don’t hear those gettin’ laid down at the next Upset The Rhythm noise scenester type happening I attend, something’s going wrong.

(Stereo Sanctity does not condone pissing out of windows by the way, even if you are Dave Davies.)

Labels: 1960s, Billy Fury, Calvin Johnson, pop, The Kinks

Velvets Ephemera # 1: Before The Banana

Above we see what could well be the earliest known photograph of The Velvet Underground, taken in 1965, before Mo Tucker joined, before Andy Warhol & co rescued them from the coffeehouse circuit. From L to R that’s Sterling Morrison, Lou Reed, John Cale and Angus Maclise, all hanging out on a picturesque NY rooftop and, you’ll note, all carrying the tools of their dubious trade. (Click for a larger view - looks like a radical axe Sterling's got there!)

I’ve been meaning to find an excuse to post this photo ever since I nabbed it from If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger.. a few months back, and now I’ve got one. Over the Christmas holidays, I finally got around to reading Uptight, the Victor Bockris/Gerald Malanga book about The Velvet Underground. Though a pretty good read, it’s not exactly the comprehensive work on the band that I’d been hoping for. It’s very good on mapping out the momentum behind the band’s formation, their interaction with the Warhol set and the rise and fall of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable (as you’d expect, what with Malanga being very much the man on the scene), but coverage of the post-Cale era is sketchy, and detail on the musical side of things is lacking throughout. Call me a geek, but, whilst the explosive mixture of characters and circumstances surrounding the Velvets is fascinating in itself, I would dearly love to find out more about when, where, how and why the different sets of songs had their genesis, what equipment the band was using, exactly who played what on different recordings and tours and what brought about the drastic changes in direction that seemed to take place between each studio album.

Beyond a few tantalising details and interview quotes making reference to customised guitars, mishandled song-writing credits and unconventional recording techniques, the Bockris/Malanga book largely ignores such issues, concentrating instead on the personalities and assuming the music was just THERE, the end result of these guys just doing what they do, because they’re, like, y’know, geniuses and whatever.

Perhaps a better way to gain an understanding of the group’s musical development (or else to deepen the mystery further) is to do what I’ve been doing over the past year or so, and take the plunge into the labyrinthine world of Velvet Underground bootlegs, demo recordings and other such ephemera.

Now, given their position as the – ahem – ‘ultimate cult band’, with over three decades worth of obsessive pre-internet fandom behind them, trying to get an angle on the Velvets bootleg scene is a grim and forbidding business to say the least. There seem to be literally hundreds of discs out there, most baring mysterioso, fan-baiting titles and misleading (deliberately or otherwise) track info, all essentially concerned with repackaging what is in fact a pretty slim body of unreleased material and decent live recordings in various states of disguise and disrepair. In addition to this, there’s also quite a lot of worthwhile extracurricular material that HAS been granted official release, but that still lies beyond the grasp of the casual fan, tucked away as it is on the difficult to find ‘Another View’ album, or the pointless/expensive ‘Peel Slowly And See’ box set.

Hence the idea behind this series of posts is that I will attempt to save you the effort by highlighting (and, where appropriate, posting) some of the most eye-opening and essential pieces of Velvet Underground ephemera in roughly chronological order, writing some stuff to put them in context, and simultaneously warning you of other boots worth avoiding.

Does that sound good? – well, either way, I’m gonna do it, so let’s crack on!

Going way back in the Velvets timeline, to before even the above photo was taken most probably, we have the extraordinary ‘demo reels’ that appear on disc # 1 of ‘Peel Slowly And See’.

From glancing at the box set’s tracklisting, you might assume these tracks were just rough sessions for the banana album, but they’re a LOT more interesting than that, and are in fact entirely unlike anything the Velvets recorded subsequently, offering a fascinating insight into the group’s earliest incarnation as what was essentially an open-ended Reed/Cale songwriting partnership that developed shortly after the two met whilst promoting Reed’s Pickwick Records quickie ‘The Ostrich’.

In the Bockris/Malanga book, brief reference is made to Cale making tapes of the band’s earliest material which he sent to some of his contacts in the UK, apparently sparking “great interest” in some quarters, shortly before the band hooked up with Warhol and embarked on a different course entirely, failing to follow up said “interest”. Now, I may be completely off-base here, but I would ASSUME that what we have in front of us is those very tapes, presented in awkward documentary style on the box set as a series of lengthy tracks, each comprising multiple takes of a single song, complete with false starts, abandoned versions etc.

It is immediately obvious is that, whilst the bare bones of some of their best known songs may be in place, the version of the Velvet Underground that made these recordings sounds strikingly different to the one that was playing for Warhol’s crowd but a few months later. For all that Lou may have subsequently liked to frame the Velvets as growing out of “just another Long Island rock n’ roll band”, and for all that Sterling Morrison may have taken every opportunity to badmouth the notion of folk music in interviews and declare his dedication to the darkest, dirtiest rock n’ roll, there’s no avoiding the fact that these recordings are, well…. folk music. Pretty weird, unconventional folk music admittedly, but no electric instruments, percussion or even a hint of r’n’b muscle are present. It’s obvious that neither Maclise nor Moe are featured on these songs, and it seems likely that Sterling wasn’t around for them either. With each track featuring just Reed & Cale’s vocals, a single acoustic guitar and one additional instrument per song (slide gtr, viola, harmonica, or just a hand pounding a desk to keep time), I strongly suspect that this is just John and Lou sketching out their song ideas on tape.

The other thing that’s obvious here is, to put it to you in eight letters, JOHN CALE. Taking lead vocals on all of the best songs, and sounding as compositionally/lyrically involved as he is musically, he definitely comes across as the stronger force in the partnership here, making his subsequent retreat to the position of musical sideman, and all those ‘Reed’ song credits on the first album, seem even more suspect.

Cale’s vocal on ‘Venus in Furs’ in particular is beautiful, as the song is drawn out into a eerie psych-folk lament, his delivery of the “I am tired / I am weary..” section managing to transcend the shabby S&M subject matter altogether, echoing the kind of sonorous, mist-shrouded celtic plainsong that he would go on to explore from time to time in his solo career. It really makes me wish that he’d been able to sing on the album version – perhaps the only thing that could have made that extraordinary track more haunting, weird and timeless than it already is.

‘Prominent Men’, with Lou taking lead vocals, is, I’m sad to report, a fairly obvious Dylan rip off, and, despite being played with gusto and a few fruity lyrical lines, doesn’t really move much beyond that status. Perhaps it was for precisely this reason that it was dropped from the Velvets roster of songs pretty swiftly and, to my knowledge, has never been heard since.

Even more curiously, ‘Waiting For The Man’ is performed here in a manner that seems somewhat derivative of The Fugs (who were pretty much the kingpins of ‘underground’ music in New York when the Velvets were starting out), with Lou’s voice still sounding kinda nasal and Dylan-y as he and John holler along together and the music approaches a kinda rough, jaunty beatnik swagger, incorporating harmonica breaks and some utterly insane Cale viola destruction in the middle. Of all the songs here, this is the one whose tone changed the most over the course of the following year. Also, listening carefully, there are definitely two guitars here, so I guess Sterl might have been around for this one too.

Musically, ‘Heroin’ adheres pretty closely to the version we know and love, although at this stage it seems to have had a quite different set of lyrics (markedly less interesting ones than those used later), and lacks both the slow-burn build-up and incendiary descent into improvised noise that help make the final version so definitively mindblowing. It'll still give you the same old shivers though, if you can get over another Dylan-ish vocal.

‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’ seems to be the song they had most trouble bringing to life – the guitar arrangement is quite complex, and the full track on the box set bears witness to near twenty minutes of abandoned takes, false starts and cursing.
The melody has a far folkier, more organic feel to it than the stark collapsing-glass-skyscraper majesty of the Nico led version on the album.

The most exciting find here though is the superb rendition of ‘Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams’, a song that featured in many early Velvets set-lists and was eventually recorded by Nico for her ‘Chelsea Girl’ album. Although the song is initially striking simply for it’s minimal, folk-derived melody and sinister, dirge-like repetition (which needless to say, Nico made the most of), I think ‘Wrap Your Troubles..’ reveals itself here as an incredibly distinctive and beautiful song, contrasting verses filled with increasingly desperate images of brutality and decay with a calm, mantra-like chorus that, much like ‘Heroin’, seems to be urging a comforting, solipsistic escape from external woes. True, some of the lyrics verge pretty heavily into teenage quasi-symbolist garbage (“..excrement filters through the brain / hatred bends the spine..” anyone?), but nonetheless, the song is as perfectly realised as any of the early Velvets material, carrying with it the kind of baroque atmosphere and singular power that would have fitted in perfectly on the banana album.

For your listening convenience, I’ve cut each of these songs down to one complete take, and am posting them as mp3s below. Well worth a listen.

The Velvet Underground – 1965 Demos

Venus In Furs (take two)
Prominent Men (take one)
Heroin(take one)
I’m Waiting For The Man (take three)
All Tomorrow’s Parties (take three)
Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams (take two)



The only other significant set of pre-first album Velvets recordings that persistently pop up are the ‘Rehearsal at the Warhol Museum’ tapes, supposedly from a tape recording made by Warhol himself of the group practicing at the Factory sometime in ’66.

These are, sad to report, a definite ‘hardcore fans only’ concern, proving, if nothing else, that even the most inspired bands have their off-days. Recording quality is roughly dictaphone level, with vocals and percussion largely inaudible and Cale’s bass predominating. It sounds like a pretty shitty, soul-draining rehearsal too for the most part, as the band shamble through a few sloppy, nameless blues jams, throwing in the odd cheesy ‘lick’ and stopping occasionally to mutter despondently. A bit of a downer.

I recall reading somewhere that these recordings were first heard when they were broadcast at some sort of Warhol retrospective/memorial event, where they were illicitly recorded by some guy pressing a tape recorder against the speaker, leading to what I can only imagine must be the most pointless and mystifying boots in rock history – a lo-fi tape recording of a public broadcast of another lo-fi tape recording of a really crappy band practice. I’ve not heard that one, but I suppose it could well venture into territory where the scuzz and ambience of a recording, the sense of unfathomable chronological and cultural distance, becomes far more affecting that the music itself – a theme we’re sure to return to in later instalments of this series.

A couple of moments of interest on the Warhol museum tape:

There’s a bit where you can hear Lou apparently trying to teach Nico to sing Venus In Furs, without much success, as Sterl and Cale jam rather slickly and horribly around the song’s central theme. There’s also a pretty interesting attempt at a really nice sounding Reed song called ‘Walk Alone’ – it’s only appearance as far as I know.

The best bit is a try-out of a song called ‘Miss Joanie Lee’ (another abandoned Reed original?), a tight John Lee Hooker-esque boogie that prefigures ‘Run Run Run’ and ‘Foggy Notion’ as Lou and Streling’s guitars momentarily coalesce into some definitive Velvets drone/choogle, like the blinding sun emerging from cloud, before the whole thing sinks into a bunch of weird, interminable noise. ‘Blues jam’ = URGH.

Here are those two bits, anyway.

The Velvet Underground – Rehearsal At The Warhol Museum

Walk Alone
Miss Joanie Lee

NEXT UP: The holy grail to some, but it does exist: some seriously good shit from the Exploding Plastic Inevitable era.

First though, I'm gonna post some stuff about new bands, just to even out my karma.

Labels: 1960s, ephemera, The Velvet Underground

Deathblog: Patrick McGoohan 1928 - 2009

I’m sure I don’t have to remind anyone reading this what a landmark of uncompromising, freethinking strangeness ‘The Prisoner’ was, and what a rare and unprecedented event it’s incursion into the sphere of mainstream British TV represented. Even if you’ve not actually watched the show (I made my way through the complete run a couple of years ago), its reputation, imagery and ideas have left an impression that extends across the whole spectrum of weird popular culture.

It’s worth remembering that as well as staring in the show (his piercing eyes, flying fists and single facial expression surely winning the nation's heart), McGoohan also devised the premise and complete plot outline for The Prisoner, scripted and directed several episodes and – allegedly – took the helm on many more via the use of pseudonyms.

I seem to remember reading some recollections somewhere of McGoohan sitting for days in his favourite pub, making voluminous notes charting out every conceivable idea he wanted to fit into The Prisoner, right down to details such as the invented martial art of Kosho.

Nothing before or since has beaten the explosion of hilarity and confusion in my household when, during a sombre viewing of the Prisoner episode ‘It’s Your Funeral’, there’s a scene in which a supporting character who’s having a disagreement with Number 6 shouts “I challenge you to a duel!” McGoohan barks “I accept!”, and then, with no explanation offered, we cut to this:



To this day, words fail me.

Sadly it seems that after the masterpiece of The Prisoner, McGoohan never again succeeded in bringing his clearly pretty unique take on things to public at large, spending the rest of his life working through a comfortable schedule of TV roles and movie bit-parts, although my brother, who takes rather more pleasure in daytime TV than I, has spoken in glowing terms of a few gloriously surreal episodes of ‘Columbo’ that McGoohan directed. You’ll have to ask him about them some time.

In the meantime, a spot-on and to the point obit from John Coulthart is can be found here.

And so, as all McGoohan obituaries are duty-bound to end: be seeing you.

Labels: 1960s, deathblog, Patrick McGoohan, The Prisoner, TV, videos, weirdness

THREE EYED MEN ARE NOT COMPLAININ'...

Regular readers will be aware that, regardless of whatever else I’ve been into at one time or another, I’ve always maintained an interest in exploring the myriad mysteries of psychedelic music, in the widest possible sense of the term.

And, as the nights draw in, the shadows climb the walls by mid-afternoon and the marvels of the internet allow me previously undreamed of access to information on, downloads of, and even affordable legit sources for, all manner of esoteric recordings both hallowed and unheralded, you’d better believe that PSYCHE has been back on the menu in a big way recently.

So, here is the first volume of what will perhaps be an irregular series of compilations charting some of the high points of my ear-explorations, featuring some stuff I’ve only just discovered mixed alongside tracks I’ve been digging for years.

Some of the artists and tracks represented will probably be familiar to psyche-fiends, others hopefully less so. I was tempted to use this space to run down some explanatory notes on these songs, but on balance I think it’s probably more appropriate to keep things mysterious. And, should you wish to find out more about any of the artists represented, a fascinating session of google-aided research is surely guaranteed. I’ve also tended to avoid the inclusion of any lengthy drone tracks or side-long freakouts, simply in order to be able to represent a wider variety of music within 80 minutes (yeah, you can put this fucker on a CD), whilst still providing some (what I hope will be) tantilizing tasters of pure sound and cosmic jazz in amongst more song-based material.

One of the best things about making psychedelic comps is the unexpected themes and synchronicities that can arise from your seemingly random track choices as you listen back after a few glasses of wine, providing the mix with it’s own unique atmosphere… if that doesn’t sound too pretentious.

For instance, whilst they’re not featured directly, the strange legacy of Roky Erickson, Tommy Hall and the other 13th Floor Elevators hangs heavy over this comp. Obviously I took the title from one of the final verses of their immortal ‘Slip Inside This House’ (“two-eyed men with mystery training / finally feel the power of thule”), and in addition to Oneida’s punk rock resurrection of that particular reality-defying classic (although they leave out the lyrics I’ve just quoted, maybe just through exhaustion), the spirit of Texas’s weirder underbelly lives on via the unique observations of Roky collaborator and electric autoharp entrepreneur Billy Miller, with his band Cold Sun, and also in the strangely similar latter-day psyche-drift of Houston’s own Christina Carter.

Journeying outward from there, it appears that, despite contributions from as far afield as Peru and New Zealand, the majority of tracks here are American, and, taken together, they could almost be seen to represent some kinda journey through a woozy, hallucinogenic alternate USA… a USA you could perhaps travel via the ‘underground railroad’ that a young Fred Cole seems so desperate to board in The Lollipop Shoppe’s song…? MYSTERY TRAIN(ing)!

So - slightly to the East of the Lone Star State, The Surrealistic Pillow give us a wonderfully naive glimpse of that strange moment when Jefferson Airplane and Doors records started to hit Louisiana’s high schools, whilst Tommy Jay keeps things in the confederacy with his account of the Battle of Fredericksburg, and teenage genius and WCPAEB alumnus Michael Lloyd gives us a Hollywood superbrat’s skewed take on the conquest of the West, via his ‘68 studio project The Smoke. Up the coast a little in ‘Frisco, the recording that opens proceedings gives us a rare early ’66 account of psychedelia’s ground zero. Alice C. provides the New York connection (via Bombay, the centre of the universe, and the eternity of her own soul), and, hey, even the UK’s Stone Angel chime in to take us on a mist-shrouded cliff walk through H.P. Lovecraft’s Other New England. Then all that’s left is for Philadelphia’s Fursaxa to issue her ultimatum to the city of angels, and we fade out on the spectre of Gary Higgins, trawling the back roads of Litchfield County, CT for his lost love as the cops – and reality - close in….

And imagine, some people say I overthink these things.

Enjoy.

Tracklist:

1. The Merry Pranksters, Grateful Dead & friends - acid test recording
2. The Smoke [U.S.] - Cowboys & Indians
3. Oneida - Slip Inside This House
4. Greg Ashley - Legs Coca Cola
5. Cold Sun - South Texas
6. Alice Coltrane - The Sun
7. Vibracathedral Orchestra - He Play All Day
8. El Polen - Mi Cueva
9. Tommy Jay - I Was There
10. Christina Carter - Blind Eye
11. The Left Handed Marriage - Limousine
12. Anthony Davis - Section 2 (Sustained Tones)
13. The Lollipop Shoppe - Underground Railroad
14. The Surrealistic Pillow - I Like Girls
15. Tall Dwarfs - Lurlene Bayliss
16. Stone Angel - The Bells of Dunwich
17. Fursaxa - Surrender, LA
18. Gary Higgins - Looking For June

Download:

Here.

(95mb .zip file)

Labels: 1960s, mixtapes, Psychedelia

INTERMISSION.

Here's Love, doing 'Message To Pretty' on some TV show in 1966;



*speechless*

Arthur Lee, we hardly knew ye.

Labels: 1960s, Arthur Lee, Love, videos

Michael Yonkers Band – Microminiature Love
(Recorded 1968 / Released by Sub-Pop, 2003)

Recorded by the exceptional Mr. Yonkers in 1968, and now available to the masses for the first time via the auspices of Sub-Pop, this is an album which pretty much exemplifies the narrative of the “lost underground freak-rock classic” archetype. I’m sure you can turn to google etc. if you want the full story.

The first thing that enters my head when I put this one on is the bit in the sleevenotes about how Sire records were planning to release the album and to try and market Yonkers as a ‘new Hendrix’ figure, but the deal fell through at the last minute. So I ponder that, and I listen to the sound emerging from my speakers, and I think, c’mon man, I don’t know who told what to whom when, but *no fucking way* would a major record label in the 1960s come within a thousand miles of releasing… THIS… even in the glory days of the cash-in psychedelia boom.

I’m still undecided as to whether ‘Microminiature Love’ is actually a good or bad record, or whether such terms even have any meaning with regard to an artefact this far off the accepted cultural map, but I am certain that it is genuinely deranged – as damaged a document of musical fucked-ness any connoisseur of such things could ever hope to find.

Yonkers is perhaps best known (amongst the kind of people likely to know of him at all) as the guy who combined his love for DIY electronics with rock n’ roll, sawing up his guitars and reassembling them as a weirdly tuned, doublenecked Frankenstein creation incorporating a theremin, at the same time as building his own fuzzboxes and echo units from scratch. Which all sounds pretty intriguing I’m sure you’ll agree, but it must be said that this sonic invention is certainly not as much in evidence on the LP as might be wished.

Yonkers and his band play a kind of nightmarish, claustrophobic garage-blues of a distinctly primitive caste, the guitar slowly navigating it’s way through wobbly, repetitive riffs that tend to sound like perverse variations on the Batman theme (so much for the new Hendrix!). Listening closer, it often sounds as if two or more guitars have been layered on top of each other, sometimes clean, echoed and jangly, sometimes deep, rumbling and fuzzed out, but always ever so slightly wonky and out of tempo/key, creating weird droning / overtone effects that hover in the background, occasionally emerging in the mix like rotor blades or croaking frogs. Interesting! Meanwhile, a rhythm section flounder around somewhere, stoned in the far background. Rendered in the kind of low fidelity you’d expect from a ‘60s basement tape, the whole thing has a weird Joe Meek kind of vibe about it, baked in wanton echo and reverb, and a certain, indefinable sense that nothing is quite the way it should be. The simplistic wrong-ness of the compositions, combined with the murk and slipshod violence of their execution, actually begins to sound quite post-punky after a while, perhaps recalling early stuff by The Fall or Butthole Surfers…. which I guess renders it ‘ahead of its time’ by default, by way of gloriously lolling in the same primordial waters of incompetence somewhere BEHIND everybody else’s musicianly time.

Yonkers’ nasal croon of a voice, utterly earnest and uncomfortably bellow-y at all times, is pushed to the forefront of the mix, where he proceeds to let rip on what some will consider a treasure trove of cracked outsider poetics, holding forth via cack-handed, childish rhyme schemes and lunatic repeated fragments on subjects such as depression, despair, escape from reality into odd personal dream worlds, and above all the horrors of war and governmental indoctrination. Songs such as ‘Smile Awhile’ seem almost obsessive in their bleakness, prefiguring the brute cosmic nihilism of Black Sabbath, whilst ‘Kill The Enemy’ sounds like a monotonous forced march straight to the cemetery, ending a blood-curdling shriek and disorientating tape echo.

Yonkers manages to sound deadly serious and deeply unhappy at all times, even then singing stuff like “Navigate your boat / keeping it afloat / round and round and round and round / round and round the moat”. You get the feeling that he has taken up the ‘60s counter-culture baton of free expression for all and naively run with it, although I suspect the San Fran tastemakers and hirsute folkies weren’t really counting on getting hit full in the face with the soul-baring of a paranoid, suburban shut-in like Yonkers when they told the world to let it all hang out.

Track 3, ‘Boy In The Sandbox’ is perhaps the album’s most astonishing moment, as Yonkers sings the story of a boy being indoctrinated from childhood into life as a soldier (fairly corny protest song stuff were it not for his insane delivery), slowly building up the tension and anger and culminating with the image of his young wife crying over the letter announcing his grisly death by bayonet in Vietnam as his baby son sits in the sandbox playing with toy soldiers. And only then does Yonkers let loose and deploy his homemade distortion pedal for the first time. You can actually hear the click of his foot hitting the switch, and then…. whoa! Holy hell! You can have a listen to the results below.

Modern day noise-freaks will relish this bit for sure, and patiently wait through the rest of the album for him to do it again, but in 1968 it must have knocked people out of their seats – a completely unprecedented flying leap into the jaws of oblivion.

So if all this sounds like your chosen pint of wine – well, it’s out there, go get it. Yonkers certainly lends a completely unique and genuine feeling to everything he does here, and I know I’ll be playing this at least a few more times trying to make sense of it all. But at the same time I wouldn’t blame you for reacting to this stuff the same way I suspect some bigwig at Sire probably did when faced with an eager young A&R brandishing a tape recorder: “Get the hell out of my office”.

Mp3> Boy In The Sandbox

Buy link> Amazon

Labels: 1960s, album reviews, Michael Yonkers Band, Proto-Punk, Psychedelia, weirdness

I know, I know.... no new posts for well over a week. Apologies.

You'll have to take my word for it that I'm currently toiling over by far the longest record review I've ever written. Coming soon.

Can you guess which album it's about? - suggestions in the comments box please. Any correct answers will be rewarded with a farcicle prize of some description, maybe.

(Hint: it's not "Grasshopper" by J.J. Cale.)

In the meantime...

Rock N' Roll Video Of The Month: February

It's The Shadows of Knight! They're lip-syncing to 'Gloria'! On a boat! Jerry McGeorge is singing into a fire extinguisher! There are dancing sailors! And I don't know WHAT the guitarist is getting up to halfway through...

God bless the internet.

Labels: 1960s, announcements, rock n' roll, The Shadows of Knight, videos

The Rolling Stones – Play With Fire b/w The Last Time (Decca, 1965)

I spotted this – scratched, dusty and unloved – in my parents’ record collection when I went home for Christmas. Not that I had any sinister record-swiping agenda you understand, it’s just that I was idly sketching out potential cover art for a 7” single and I needed to find one to draw around to get the size right, and… well anyway, there is was. I think the reason I’d never clocked this one before whilst flicking through our house’s shoebox of ancestral 45s is that, as you can see, the label on the a-side has been torn off, rendering the music within a mystery. This time round though, I was drawn for whatever reason to turn the disc over to investigate further, and discovered it was by the ‘Stones! Score! I wasn’t familiar with the song “The Last Time”, but still, a sixties Rolling Stones single! Clearly this one needed to take a trip back with me to London, and a functioning record player.

So, after forgetting about the damn thing for a couple of weeks, it was only the other day that I finally dropped the needle and discovered the a-side is ‘Play With Fire’. Double score! I’m sure I don’t need to waste time telling you how good the song is. Surely the most beautiful, unconventional and sinister of all the early Jagger/Richards songs, slowly rising like scented black smoke from my hi-fi speakers in glorious, fuzzy mono through a thick curtain of crackle. More than ever, it sounds less like a run of the mill Rolling Stones single and more like the kind of thing Mick Jagger’s character from ‘Performance’ might have charted with in his glory days. Evil, decadent jangle-folk for the masses. Wow.

But even wower, it turns out ‘The Last Time’ is a fucking brilliant number too. It’s an r’n’b derived original with a great melody that sees the band hitting the same kind of raucous, party-shaking groove that made their early, pre-fame singles so hot. The twangy lead guitar hook (I’m not enough of a Stones geek to immediately identify it as the work of Keith or Brian, though I’d guess the latter) is absolute punk genius, and it’s got one of those great, lolloping slightly-too-polite Charlie Watts rhythms going on. It’s funny how although the innumerable thousands of garage bands who idolised the Stones had a natural tendency to tear off in crazed pursuit of the high-energy finish-line (and I bless them thrice daily for it), as I get older I’m really starting to appreciate the more subtle pleasures of Charlie’s old-fashioned approach to things, and this song is a perfect case in point. Marvel as he helps cement the band into a fiendishly hot, deceptively mid-paced groove that – I would like to think – could still kick off some smouldering action on yr nearest dancefloor nearly fifty years after the fact, whereas most of our Nuggets faves would simply give rise to carnage and confusion. Let’s hear it for Charlie!

I don’t know whether this record is worth anything in terms of money, and I don’t particularly care. I guess probably not, seeing as it’s a flimsy, scratched copy of a hit single by an extremely popular band, but nonetheless, feel free to taunt me in the comments box by going “Wow, you’ve got original pressing with the blue label! Have you considered taking out life insurance and investing in a fireproof safe?” or something. I’m an idiot, I’ll believe you.

Mp3s:

(Note these are CD versions of the songs, not ones ripped from my old 7”. I’ll leave you to decide whether that adds or detracts from the experience.)

Play With Fire / The Last Time

Labels: 1960s, rock n' roll, singles reviews, The Rolling Stones

FUZZBOX MELTDOWN:
Girls With Guitars (Ace Records)

As part of the ongoing collectors quest to unearth the holy grail of a single female ‘60s rock band who played their own instruments, wrote their own songs and were actually GOOD, an outfit called Romulan Records have issued at least twelve(??) volumes of their Girls In The Garage series over the years, and having heard about half of them, I’m sad to report that they are a disappointing prospect on the whole, regardless of how enticing they look in the record racks. Half decent material is obviously in short supply, and quality control is near non-existent.

It’s a bad sign that the early volumes found room for outright atrocities like Althea & The Memories “The Worst Record in The World” (essentially Kim Fowley jabbering for three minutes whilst some teenagers giggle and yell in the background) and goofy, if enjoyable, trash like The Surfer Girls’ “Draggin’ Wagon” (a stolen Chuck Berry backing track with some session singers doing archetypal hotrod lyrics over the top), whilst later volumes lose the plot entirely, resorting to covering French Yé-Yé pop (which is obviously cool, but pretty damn far from the garage, and better served by other compilation series), and even ‘80s/’90s tracks by The Delmonas and Holly Golightly (which are great too of course, but c’mon). There are a fair few intriguing oddities and lost classics scattered throughout the ‘..Garage’ comps of course, and I respect the compilers for taking the time to put them together so we can hear this stuff, but the good bits are few and far between, and depessingly, nearly all of the artists featured sound like bottom drawer novelty groups and cash-in studio quickies rather than genuine bands.

The dream of a real life Carrie Nations lives on though, and hey, here come the ever-reliable Ace Records – home of enough quality 50s/60s reissues to last a life-time, including the great ‘Good Girls Gone Bad’ round-up of ‘50s female rockers – with their own Girls With Guitars. A single volume – sensible! Some of the tunes included cross over with Romulan’s comps, but still, compressed into a lean 24 tracks, could this finally be the motherlode of ‘60s girl garage that is actually worth listening to? Fingers crossed... let’s go!




1.The Girls - My Baby

Not a bad start – quite a nice, restrained bit of garage-rock with a half-decent dance-floor rhythm and a twangy lead guitar line. The vocals sound good n’ real too, kinda sweet. Could this be a genuine girl-rock-band…? I dunno, I mean what do you want me to do, google “the girls”?

2. The Tomboys - I'd Rather Fight Than Switch

Hey, this one’s pretty good too! Quite a rough, lively Beatles-y guitar pop number in which The Tomboys outline their intention to kick some ass in order to save their boyfriends from the attentions of rival chicks. Wow! I hope those young hoodlums realised what a swell bunch of gals they’d got themselves, and hey, they even play in a band too! Honestly fellas, what’s with all the fooling around?

3. The Angels - Get Away From Me

A really cheap sounding Motown-ish girl group / soul knock-off that more than gets by on charm and eccentricity I reckon, built as it is around the admirable sentiment of telling creepy, annoying boys to fuck off. The vocalists have got a great street kid snarl, making them sound a little like distant ancestors of Thee Headcoatees, plus there’s a totally weird solo played on what sounds like a fairground wurlitzer organ, and even some Standells-style back-talk at the end; “listen here buddy-boy, if you don’t back off, I’m gonna belt you in a minute!” No kidding!

4. Denise & Company - Boy, What'll You Do Then?

Great, tough bit of harmonica-driven dance party stomp with great, furious female vocals. Pretty straight-down-the-line good stuff, so I can’t think of much more to say about it. Musically robust and rockin’ enough to justify a place on any given ‘Pebbles’ or ‘Back From The Grave’ disc, which is more than can be said for a lot of the stuff on this comp.

5. Goldie & The Gingerbreads - Chew Chew Fee Fi Fum

Pretty lame-brained bit of cookie cutter teenybop junk, although it’s hard to hate music this innocent and positive, no matter how bad it is. Plus: redeemed by some awesome hand-clapping and a rockin’ sax solo!

6. The Beatle-Ettes – Only Seventeen

Obvious beatlemania cash-in, presumably intended as an answer record to the Beatles “Seventeen”. Oddly, it doesn’t sound very much like the Beatles at all, until they bust into a rip from “She Loves You” on the chorus. A fairly pleasant three chord pop readymade anyhow.

7. Sugar & The Spices - Do The Dog

Total ‘written in 10 seconds’ stoopid dance-craze song that’s not a patch on the other Sugar & The Spices tune on this album. A b-side possibly? Notable for the presence of a girl trying to imitate one of the tenor backing singers in male doo-wop groups, which is kinda sweet, and weird, ill thought-out lyrics like “c’mon and do the dog ‘till you want to die!”, which really isn’t.

8. Kathy Lynn & The Playboys - I Got a Guy

I wonder if this is the same Playboys of Gerry Lewis & The Playboys (lack of) fame? Oh, who cares frankly. Music is pretty basic Chuck Berry with some good guitar. Kathy’s got a guy who plays in a rock n’ roll band, and she’s gonna love him all she can. Can’t say fairer than that. “Take it baby!”, she says before the solo, and baby proceeds to do just that, providing the obvious highlight of this one minute and fifty-seven seconds of my life.

9. The Goodees - Double Shot (Of My Baby's Love)

Oh YEAH!! Woo-hoo! Etc! Yes, it’s a female fronted version of The Swingin’ Medallions all-time frat party classic, and though a touch less rowdy than the original (no yelling or party noise), it’s still a good job for me they don’t bottle THIS stuff. The immortal organ hook is present and correct, although this version fucks with perfection slightly by burying the last three notes under a stax horn blast, but no matter, we get the point. Great drumming and nifty lead guitar licks too. The vocalist sounds a little unsure of herself, and no wonder, as lyrics which all seemed in good fun when hollered by an all-male chorus sound positively filthy with the gender pronouns reversed and delivered by a lone lady (“He loved so long, and he loved me so hard, I finally passed out in his front yard”?). Still, this one’s going straight to the top of my hypothetical party playlist, and if there’s a better record on this comp, I’ll eat my toga.

10. The Pandoras - (I Could Write a Book) About My Baby

Ooooh, wow, this one gets pretty close! Absolutely BEAUTIFUL handclap, xylophone and horn driven Specter-esque bubblegum girl-group magic of the highest order, but way more lightweight and fancy free than Phil’s sturm-und-drang walls of sound ever allowed for. Beautiful melody, beautiful vocals, and belts along with a brilliant, shimmering groove that’s just to die for. Chorus line: “I could write a book about my baby, and it would be a book that every girl would buy!” I think I just felt my eyes turn heart-shaped and go “boi-oi-oing”. Some contemporary indie-pop group really needs to dig out this song and cover it for all the Belle & Sebastian kids to get down to, if they haven’t already.

11. Pat Powdrill & Powerdrills - They Are the Lonely

What the hell is this?? Lurching several years and whole cultural world away from most of the proceeding tracks, this is a pretty inspid faux-psychedelia quickie with a keyboard intro lifted from “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds”, utterly shitty lyrics and Grace Slick type lead vocals. It is sad to reflect that this is approximately one-thousand times less rocking than a group christened “Pat Powdrill & The Powerdrills” properly should be.

12. 2 Of Clubs – Heart

I don’t know quite what the deal is with this little record; it seems to be having a bit of a mid-60s identity crisis, sounding half girl-group and half folk-rock, with a crazy, rip roaring garage / r’n’b middle section that kicks things into gear slightly. The first half is pretty blah, but it definitely picks up a bit when some punk starts busting out some Animals style organ and everybody claps their hands gospel style. Still suffers from being essentially not very good though.

13. Daughters Of Eve - Help Me Boy

Another really dreary bit of kitschy soft-psyche that steals a few bits from “Icthycoo Park” and god knows what else besides. Soul-crushingly competent, instantly forgettable.

14. Goldie & The Gingerbreads - Skinny Vinnie

Totally goofy street girl doo-wop trash with a definite whiff of Kim Fowley about it; “he’s not much thicker than a fishing pole / he’s one half rock and the other half roll!” Fun!

15. The Percells - Hully Gully Guitar

Oh man, now THIS is a bad record. An attempt at a “listen to the guitar man” song in the vein of Dick Dale’s “King of the Surf Guitar”, the guitar man here unfortunately seems to be a surly, rock n’ roll hating studio hack who reluctantly spent a few minutes learning bits off Eddie Cochran records in exchange for beer money. Correspondingly, the singer sounds like she absolutely could not give a shit. The song is utterly mindless, the production values are non-existent and the playing is so sluggish and stilted it sounds like everyone in room could have been on a ketamine comedown. And they drag it out for nearly three fucking minutes. So horrid and joyless it’s actually quite creepy. Bad vibes all round – I’m gonna skip on to the next one if that’s ok.

16. Kathy Lynn & The Playboys - Rock City

More solid rockin’ fare from Kathy and her darling on the guitar. Hang on though, I think this is actually an instrumental…. where’s Kathy?? I mean, we’ve already established that she’s the singer and the band are guys, so what’s THIS doing taking up space on ‘Girls With Guitars’?

17. Lonnie Mack & The Charmaines - Sticks and Stones

Lonnie Mack’s not a girl either! What the hell is going on here? Presumably The Charmaines are girls though, and they sing some back-up on what’s essentially a jaunty though unremarkable little instrumental rock number.

18. Goldie & The Gingerbreads - Take My Hand

As far removed from the previous Goldie & The Gingerbreads tracks as can be imagined, this starts off as an attempt at sultry, dignified a-cappella gospel harmonising, before exploding into a passable Martha & The Vandellas pastiche. For some reason, The Amazing Criswell pops up towards the end to say “one more time!”

19. Sugar & The Spices - Boys Can Be Mean

This is more like it! Lovely bit of Southern-tinged, swingin’ pop… sounds a bit like Bobbie Gentry fronting the Carrie Nations. Only not quite THAT good, obviously. Killer song too, giving girls the low-down on us boys and our wicked ways. The day’s gonna come when we’re gonna have to do some prayin’, apparently.

20. Al Casey & The K-C-Ettes - Guitars, Guitars, Guitars

Another guy who’s not a girl! Heaven’s sake! Cool little song though, with smokin’ guitar and organ making for a great Booker T kinda sound. The K-C-Ettes sing about being kept awake by “guitars, groovin’ in the alley”, but thankfully they seem to appreciate the benefits of living in such a lively neighbourhood, so that’s just fine.

21. Goldie & The Gingerbreads – V.I.P.

Yet more Gingerbreads action for yer money. This is by far the best track by them on this album; a nice, dumb, danceable bit of feel-good soul-pop with a really swinging big band and good, punchy production. Alright.

22. The Hairem – Come On Along

‘Hairem’?? Christ, what an awful name. The first time I listened to this, I thought it was so appalling I had to skip it after about 40 seconds, but having another go for the sake of writing this review, I think I was being very, very foolish, because this is actually rather wonderful, and perhaps unique. Firstly, they’re definitely playing their own instruments, as I can’t possibly imagine any session-men could play in such a weird and shaky fashion, even if they wanted to. And whilst the playing and production are appallingly sloppy by conventional ‘60s pop standards, Hairem sound way more like a genuine, self-defined teenage girl garage band than anyone else on this disc, and have a great, innocent energy about them that’s really lovely. There’s a sort of dignified wallflower shyness to the band’s performance here and a refusal to engage with macho rock band clichés that puts me in mind of The Marine Girls. Obviously this is still a heartfelt take at a rock n’ roll song though, so perhaps think The Marine Girls quietly trying to be Buddy Holly in their parents’ basement somewhere in California. Yeah, don’t worry, I swooned too. The lead vocalist actually has a pretty strong voice, but the harmonies from the other are just so hesitant and sweet…. arg! Damn, these girls sound like they’re having so much fun though. “It’s Piper’s turn now!”, the singer shouts, and Piper proceeds to play a swell, surfy Hank Marvin style riff/solo that continues through the rest of the song. By the standards of 99% of the world’s music listeners, this is probably not a great record, but I… I.. I’m speechless in the face of such beauty.

23. The Girls - My Love

More moody and dramatic than the Girls track that opened the album, this is nonetheless pretty generic post-Beatles American teen fare, but it’s also pretty raw and gutsy, and again sounds like these could well be genuine girls with guitars, so… good.

24. She - Outta Reach

Opening and closing with a bunch of saucy “uh!”s and “yeeeeah”s, ‘She’ almost sounds like a young Patti Smith in places. Her band meanwhile play total trashola organ-driven garage slop. Pretty spirited stuff and not half bad, although I fear it suffers from being conceived / written / recorded in about ten minutes.

WHAT WE’VE LEARNED:

Look, let’s just face facts: there was no female equivalent of The Chocolate Watch Band, no matter how much we might want one. Despite the teenage cultural emancipation of the ‘50s, American society in the ‘60s was still deeply sexist and conservative, and the music industry doubly so. (For one random example, just look at the way Grace Slick was sidelined in the Jefferson Airplane, only allowed a couple of tracks on each album to do her thing, despite being obviously the best singer in the band and the writer of both of their hit singles.) Even the basic idea of girls playing guitars, acoustic ones even, and writing songs only made it’s way into public consciousness thanks to the likes of Joni and Carly in the early ‘70s, despite the earlier trailblazing efforts of cult faves like Odetta or Wanda Jackson.

And chances are, even any girls who did break with cultural norms by learning to play rock n’ roll would have been given a pretty hard time in the course of trying to get a half-decent record made; ridiculed or neglected by record companies, sold as novelty / throwaway acts, forced to work with manipulative producers who’d try to push them toward a more ‘feminine’ (read: crappy) sound... all are likely possibilities.

But if we leave aside concerns about authenticity for a while and stop dreaming of the non-existent bad-ass garage chicks who didn’t play the Whisky A-Go-Go in '66, Ace have really pulled out all the stops to put together a fun-packed compilation of the best ‘60s American girl stuff that DOES exist; the vast majority of the tracks here are real enjoyable, and there are at least 4 or 5 bona fide classics included, which is more than can be boasted of by most second-division male garage comps. So well worth checking out if you appreciate a good bit of obscure, sugary teen trash jollity, with at least a few songs worthy of being checked out by everybody with a pulse, some of which below.

TOP THREE SONGS:

1. The Goodees - Double Shot (Of My Baby's Love)

2. The Pandoras - (I Could Write a Book) About My Baby

3. The Hairem – Come On Along

(To buy Girls With Guitars, clicketh here.)

---------

UPDATE:

Some further info on The Hairem, courtesy of All Music Guide:

One of the few all-female garage bands of their time to play their own instruments and write their own material, the Hairem did not release any recordings, though they did evolve into the more psychedelic- and hard-rock-influenced She in the late 1960s, which put out one single in 1970. The Hairem got together in the mid-1960s when guitarist and primary songwriter Nancy Ross formed a teen band (with her younger sister Sally on organ) in Sacramento, California. Originally known as the Id, they changed their name to the Hairem and did attract some label interest. The Hairem did not officially release anything in the 1960s, but five songs that they recorded did come out on the She CD compilation Wants a Piece of You (which also has 14 songs from several years later by She) in 1999. These cuts, though not as crude as the Shaggs, were nonetheless quite raw and basic, in the manner of many US garage bands of the period. Indeed they're pretty generic, or sub-generic, the chief distinction being that there were extremely few all-female groups playing such music circa 1966, especially with the raunchy attitude evident on cuts such as "Like a Snake."

I still reckon the Hairem track is way better than the She one, but such is life.

Labels: 1960s, fuzzbox meltdown, Girls With Guitars, pop, The Hairem

FUZZBOX MELTDOWN: Episode # 1

Ok, new feature here, but a pretty simple concept to grasp. Lately I’ve been listening to an absolute TON of garage/psych compilations, pursuing an increasingly obsessive dream of becoming familiar which each and every single genuinely wild n’ tripped out ‘60s gem amid the masses of entirely unremarkable obscurities that cackling collectors and compilers seem to rejoice in flooding the world with via a seemingly endless stream of outrageously packaged, randomly assembled compilations.

Perhaps they do this in order to satisfy some quasi-sadistic urge to inflict some of the same “needle in a haystack” style hard labour upon the casual listening public that they themselves have suffered through a lifetime of stockpiling warped garage-sale 45s, bidding outrageous sums for unheard acetate obscurities at record fairs and so on. Or maybe they just realize they’ll make more cash to keep their own excavation/reissue operations going if they release 17 volumes of “Blinding Yellow Bicycle Rings: Prime Scandinavian Pop-Sike Fizz 1968-72” than if they behave like sensible human beings and cut it down to, say, three good ones.

Either way, getting the most out of this particular musical infatuation inevitably involves breaking out the machete and cutting through some serious sugar-coated undergrowth to get to the good stuff. So to make things a bit more interesting, I’m going to throw on a compilation disc for the first time, and throw down my thoughts into MS Word as I listen, so that you can, um, take the journey with me so to speak. Be warned: it might get ugly, it might get geeky, but it might just be… amazing.

So, starting in relatively shallow waters, we shall begin, for no particular reason, with Disc Three of Rhino’s Nuggets II: Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond: 1965 – 69 box-set. Let’s go!

1. Cuby & The Blizzards - Your Body Not Your Soul
I think I saw a picture of these guys on the internet somewhere; they looked pretty gnarly. This record is a fairly ok fuzz-garage stomper; “I want your body baby / I don’t want your soul!” Nice one Cuby, that’s sure to win her over.
2. The Twilights - Cathy, Come Home
Hmm… don’t like this much at all. Sounds like a sugary, low-budget British studio-bound affair.
3. Les Fleur De Lys - Circles
This is a fairly rockin’ bit of British fare. Fleur De Lys did quite a few good tunes within that whole Shel Talmy mod/psych crossover thing. This is a Who cover, and I think I actually like it better than their version (better vocalist), although it’s no “Can’t Explain” or “Substitute” obviously.
4. The Matadors - Get Down From The Tree
The Matadors huh? I wonder where these guys were from… would be dumb of me to assume Spain, but wherever they call home, these guys have a definite Latin-imitating –American thing in the vocals. Good octopus-drummin’ freakbeat stomper anyway – I could do the twist to this, except where it goes all slow at the end…hmm.
5. Q65 - Cry In The Night
Ho yeah! Q65! This is more like it! Holland’s premier garage-punk nutters with another short, sharp blast of straight-up r’n’b/punk. Rough-ass production, really ragged, energetic playing, great lyrics, good tune and good times all round! Party on, Q65!
6. Los Chijuas - Changing The Colors Of Life
Los Chijuas..? From a Spanish-speaking country I’m assuming..? Mexico at a guess? But, I mean, “Les Fleur De Lys” are English, so who knows. Great Standells-esque organ-driven sound here anyway, but with far more melodic vocals. I’m sure this would go down a storm on any '60s-focused dancefloor – it’s got a real nice swing to it.
7. The Bluestars - Social End Product
Man, this is fucking furious!! – Totally vicious, juvenile delinquent ranting song in the vein of The Seeds or The Lyrics ‘So What?’, but with totally harsh, headbanging instrumental bludgeoning, ala The Sparkles ‘No Friend of Mine’; “I cop a label as an angry young man / because I don’t fit into the masterplan / Under society’s microscope / I may look funny, but it’s no joke!” The next time some sausagehead starts insisting punk rock began in the ‘70s, whack this one on for them. Seriously, replace the organ with another guitar, make the beat about 50% less ‘oom-pah’ and this could be, like, The Dead Boys or The Exploited or something. Plus the singer makes with a great kinda leaking-gas-pipe “ssssssssss” noise throughout, and that always gets me excited. Best song on this comp so far!
8. The Syndicate - Crawdaddy Simone
This is pretty great too – sounds like it should be a John Lee Hooker style tough-boogie number, but the band have this kinda noisy, arrhythmic, proto-industrial thing going on that completely murders the blues. Plus some seriously damaged no wave guitarwork! It seems the Simone of the title isn’t the hot chick one might expect, but actually some mysterious, menacing cat ala Roy Orbison’s “Domino”. Holy shit, that’s the most cracked solo I’ve heard in months! Great, unusual, sleazy un-groove going on here and… oh my god, culminates in a load of just totally out-there atonal, space noise! Magnificent!
9. The Sound Magics - Don't You Remember?
I listened to this about 30 seconds ago and can’t think of a damned thing to say about it, so… yeah, guess I don’t. Has a kind of a melodramatic, slightly Latin-tinged thing going on.
10. The Guess Who - It's My Pride
Sounds much like you’d expect an early Guess Who single to I suppose – a boozy, leery Doors knock-off, somewhat in the spirit of a fat man on LSD being pushed down some stairs. Pretty solid stuff maybe, but, sorry folks, The Guess Who have never really floated my boat.
11. The Open Mind - Magic Potion
Nice ‘Magic Bus’ era Who stylings here, with a classic ‘we don’t actually know anything about drugs, but doing a thinly-veiled song about ‘em seems to be the done thing’ lyrics. Occasional outbreaks of Ron Ashton-worthy distortion/wah-wah abuse are the highlight for me.
12. The Missing Links - You're Driving Me Insane
The Missing Links have a reputation as Australia’s wildest / most notorious ‘60s group, and on the basis of this barely coherent chunk of sexually frustrated menace, I can believe it. The guitarist flings around some huge, Townshend-esque windmilling licks before launching into a totally ripping skronk solo that don’t give a damn for nobody, whilst the rhythm section sound like they are actually being physically attacked – maybe by the singer? – as they valiantly try to keep time. “When you kiss my lips / you’re driving me insane!!”; I have a feeling the citizens of Melbourne or wherever would have slept a lot safer at night if these guys’ girlfriends had loosened up a little and just, y’know, seen to their needs once in a while.
13. The Jury - Who Dat?
More knuckleheaded freakbeat raunch for us here, with real levels-in-the-red compressed production. The guitarist just repeats the first six notes of the “Have Love Will Travel” riff ALL THE WAY THROUGH. I ask you! This one’s very ‘Back From The Grave’ I guess.
14. John's Children - A Midsummer's Night Scene
I fucking love John’s Children! They did loads of great stuff besides their all-time weird-rock classic ‘Desdemona’ (included on another disc of this box-set), and can always be relied upon for a good bit of totally OTT brit-psych freakout, with a sense of humour and enough of their mod roots intact to resist complete dissolution by the sugar-lumps-and-afternoon-tea brigade. Not to mention Marc Bolan popping in to do his whole rock n’ roll gnome thing every now and then. Anyway, this one’s a great slab of thugs-takin’-acid Summer Of Love euphoria – “..In the park/getting dark/eating the heat/there’s an eye/in the sky/ melting your feet..”. As usual it sounds like they were going bonkers in the studio, with insane reverb, looped, echoed vocal chants, reversed bits, random noises, boinging trampoline guitar notes… you name it.
15. The Sands - Listen To The Sky
More ambitious than your average Nugget, this starts out like a mid-period Beatles character song and builds into a soaring pop melodrama about a doomed Spitfire pilot that sounds SO SO SO like it should have been stuck in the middle of The Pretty Things ‘SF Sorrow’. Has an outro consisting of air-raid sirens and machine gun noises that just goes on and on and, hey wow, it wasn’t the outro after all, the song’s come back in for some more dynamic guitar action!
16. The Mockingbirds - How To Find A Lover
I suppose a good first step toward finding a lover might be to NOT spend all day talking jive about obscure trash-psychedelia records and then publishing the results on the internet, but sadly The Mockingbirds have no such down to earth advice to offer on this unremarkable bit of baroque-pop fluff, so I’ll just carry on.
17. The Idle Race - Days Of The Broken Arrows
Never really been a huge fan of The Idle Race, despite their high critical standing amongst fans of this-sort-of-thing. They’re more imaginative than most admittedly, but a bit…. irritating, no? This is one of their better tunes though, I guess. Pleasantly crazy, but y’know, early Floyd and Soft Machine existed at this point, so…. why would you, really?
18. The Elois - By My Side
‘The Elois’? I wonder where these guys were from? Pretty uneventful tune anyway, in the context of the whacked out fare on this disc at least. Meh.
19. The Factory - Path Through The Forest
Oh, now this is fantastic. A British psyche classic of the first order I reckon. Strips away all that stupid post-Sgt. Pepper gloop for a simple lesson is true, dark psychedelic romanticism; an urgent ‘chase-scene’ rhythm, a great, subtle vocal performance sounding like it’s being beamed in via a transistor radio and drifting shards of feedback guitar imitating owl-hooting, growls and sharpened knives. Wordlessly weird and ineffably fascinating and atmospheric, like the musical equivalent of emerging from technicolour brambles to see the sole light in the gable window a derelict Victorian parsonage silhouetted against depth-defying blue-black sky…. THIS is what it’s all about!
20. Episode 6 - Love Hate Revenge
Oh my god! Opening verse: “I bought a dog from an old bearded lady / I called it Tanya and it looks just like you / and although it might sound kind of crazy / I can make you feel anything I want you to” – GENIUS! Musically quite interesting, with a faint raga vibe and some “Mother’s Little Helper” sitar-y bits, but man, these lyrics are absolutely whacko! I’m really not sure how to best respond to an upbeat pop song about a guy who tortures a dog because he thinks the pain will be magically transferred to his ex-girlfriend. Kudos to whoever dug this one up, but, um, moving swiftly on…
21. The Status Quo - Pictures Of Matchstick Men
..AAGH! No denim or misguided ponytails in evidence in the early twee-psyche incarnation of The Quo of course, but on the basis of this their penchant for mind-numbing repetition of simplistic themes was already well-established. A lot of people seem to really dig this record. Gimme ‘Sweet Caroline’ any day.
22. The Voice - The Train To Disaster
Top drawer bit of flailing, chaotic fuzz-punk. The vocal melody is a bit weak, but makes up for it with great ‘Eve of Destruction’ style apocalyptic lyrics. Nice!
23. The (Australian) Playboys - Sad
I like the “(Australian)”. Do you think there was a lawsuit with some other Playboys from a different country? Musically this one’s a bit so-so anyway. If I’m interpreting the lyrics right, the singer appears to be in a deserted seaside town, looking for a guy named “Sad”, which is an… odd lyrical theme.
24. The Slaves - Slave Time
Hmm, doesn’t have quite the same appeal as “MONK TIME!” does it? Don’t really know what the hell is supposed to be going on here, but it’s a bit fucking rubbish to be honest. I wonder if they dressed up as slaves or something? Who knows, who cares.
25. The Red Squares - You Can Be My Baby
More Who/Creation chops. Christ, the drummer’s going to get a hernia if he’s not careful!
26. Scrugg - I Wish I Was Five
‘Scrugg’? What kind of a name is that? – the kind of thing you call your band when you wish you were five presumably. Makes me wish I was 80 and listening to Ralph McTell, and that all this horrid electrified madness would just GO AWAY.
27. The Downliners Sect - Glendora
Ah, let’s end things on a high-note! Hopefully The Downliners Sect need no introduction, neither as primo Billy Childish inspirations nor as one of Britain’s rawest, most eccentric and generally bestest ‘60s bands. ‘Glendora’ isn’t anywhere near my favourite song by them, but I guess it’s fuzz/tremolo guitar and funny, psyched out lyrics render it more in the Nuggets spirit than their more characteristic blues and country rave-ups. Great, untutored girly backing vocals too! Cracking!

WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED:

1.Generally speaking, this disc reinforces my belief that whilst European bands in the ‘60s were more imaginative and open-minded than their American counterparts, particularly in regards to production values and guitar pyrotechnics, they were nevertheless * less rocking * in an indefinable but very important sense.

2.The Who have got a lot to answer for.

3. Ten of the tracks here are over three minutes! They’d never have stood for it in the States, I tell you. Bloody Beatles.

4. My head hurts and NO WAY do I want to hear any fuzz guitar or vox organ for…ooh, at least 12 hours.

TOP 3 TRACKS:

1. The Factory – Path Through The Forest
2. The Bluestars – Social End Product
3. The Syndicate – Crawdaddy Simone

(If you’re thus inclined, buy Nuggets II: Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond here.)

Labels: 1960s, fuzzbox meltdown, Nuggets, Psychedelia

A SHORT POST ABOUT LOVE

Yes, that’s Love with Arthur Lee, not Love the unknowable abstract force that drives the universe onward, so you can breathe easy readers.

It is now one year since Arthur Lee shuffled off this mortal coil and, entirely by coincidence, I find myself more obsessed than ever with the 1966 single that perhaps represents the pinnacle of his group’s unique rock n’ roll alchemy: the two minute and twenty second assault on the senses that is 7 & 7 Is. It’s a tune which I’d assume most of you will already be familiar with, but if not, strap yourself in tightly, and hit the link below:

Mp3 > Love - 7 & 7 Is

Love are of course best remembered today for ‘Forever Changes’ – an unparalleled masterpiece which crams reflections on paranoia, drug psychosis, collapsing societal values, the blurring of the link between the ego and universe and the vicious chasm between innocence and experience into convoluted, visionary song structures, and yet is somehow routinely written off by inattentive listeners as an example of carefree, summertime pop.

This is not a misapprehension which could ever be applied to ‘7 & 7 Is’. For whilst much of Love’s other significant material hides it’s true colours behind conventional folk-rock jangle, soaring melodies and lush, baroque arrangements, ‘7 & 7 Is’ defies any such rationalisation. It represents a different side to the band which was rarely realised on their studio recordings: that of a gang of feral street-punks, contemptuous of all and whacked out of their gourds on everything their record company pay-checks could buy, absorbing the emerging music/drug culture faster than they could comprehend it and, in the form of records like this one, issuing forth mercurial howls of confusion from the heart some acid and speed fried flower-punk netherworld that the squares couldn’t even begin to imagine.

For, no matter how many times you hear it in clubs or on compilation albums, ‘7 & 7 Is’ is never normalised. No matter what angle you examine it from, It remains UTTERLY FUCKING INSANE.

As any ‘60s aficionado will tell you, even the best garage/psyche cuts start to fall into quite predictable generic boxes after you’ve listened to enough of them, but not so this Molotov cocktail of a record. That amphetamine-crazed mariachi gallop of the drums, setting the pace faster than a sober human brain can easily comprehend..? That completely over-the-top tremolo / reverb / distortion thing on those huge guitar flourishes, like Link Wray caught in some blazing yellow technicolour nightmare..? The frenzied, echoed count-down to a sampled atom-bomb explosion…?? Followed by a totally incongruous tension-release blues breakdown, like some ancient breakout from ancestral memory?! And man, don’t even get me STARTED on the lyrics and vocal delivery or we’ll be here all day…. never mind why in the hell it’s called ‘7 & 7 Is’.

Needless to say, there is nothing else in the realm of rock n’ roll before or since that really sounds much like this. It packs so much invention and pure violence into such a short timeframe, without the reassurance of any kind of logical framework…. the song seems like it’s over before it’s even begun, leaving listeners reeling; “Did that record actually just HAPPEN, or did something go wrong with my brain…?” Truly warped, street-level psychedelia, forcing synesthesia upon innocents like a hammer between the eyes.

There’s a rumour that Love once played a concert where they concluded their set with ‘7 & 7 Is’, and at the song’s ‘explosion’ moment, Arthur Lee pulled out a fake gun and pretended to blow his brains out.

Picture that whilst listening to the song, and imagine what an incredible theatrical moment that must have been! I’d like to think that as his ‘body’ fell, the band moved seamlessly into the blues breakdown bit and the audience looked on speechless with shock in a moment of weird calm.

And I’ll give you another great rumour for yer money too:

Although it’s been denied by band members for obvious legal reasons, the story persists that at one point Johnny Echols and Ken Forssi from Love financed their drug habits by carrying out a series of armed hold-ups on donut stalls around L.A.

The press called them “The Donut Robbers”.

“The Donut Robbers”. Incredible.

BOOM-BIP-BIP, BOOM-BIP-BIP, YEAH!

Labels: 1960s, 7 and 7 Is, Arthur Lee, Donut Robbers, Love, Psychedelia