https://exchange.prx.org/p/567398
This week we mix in some unusual tracks, including a couple artists we've never played on the show before and an entire side of Frank Zappa's Lumpy Gravy. We also have a new Advanced Psych segment and a set of tunes from Animals in transition.
Artist: Seeds
Title: Pushin' Too Hard
Source: Simulated stereo CD: Nuggets-Classics From The Psychedelic 60s (originally released as 45 RPM single and included on LP: The Seeds)
Writer(s): Sky Saxon
Label: Rhino (original label: GNP Crescendo)
Year: 1965
Pushin' Too Hard is generally included on every collection of psychedelic hits ever compiled. And for good reason. The song is an undisputed classic, although it took the better part of two years to catch on. Originally released in 1965 as Your Pushin' Too Hard, the song was virtually ignored by local Los Angeles radio stations until a second single, Can't Seem To Make You Mine, started getting some attention. After being included on the Seeds' debut LP in 1966, Pushin' Too Hard was rereleased and soon was being heard all over the L.A. airwaves. By the end of the year stations in other markets were starting to spin the record, and the song hit its peak of popularity in early 1967.
Artist: Paul Revere and the Raiders
Title: There's Always Tomorrow
Source: LP: Midnight Ride
Writer: Levin/Smith
Label: Columbia
Year: 1966
Paul Revere and the Raiders was one of the many bands of the early 1960s that helped lay the groundwork for the temporary democratization of American popular music later in the decade (for more on that head over to hermitradio.com and click the link to "The Psychedelic Era"). After honing their craft for years in the clubs of the Pacific Northwest the Raiders caught the attention of Dick Clark, who called them the most versatile rock band he had ever seen. Clark introduced the band to Terry Melcher, which in turn led to Paul Revere and the Raiders being the first rock band ever signed to industry giant Columbia Records, at that time the second largest record company in the country. In addition to organist Revere the band featured Mark Lindsay on lead vocals and saxophone, Phil "Fang" Volker on bass, Drake Levin on lead guitar and Mike "Smitty" Smith on drums. Occassional someone other than Lindsay would get the opportunity to sing a lead vocal part, as Smitty does on There's Always Tomorrow, a song he co-wrote with Levin shortly before the guitarist quit to join the National Guard. Seriously, the guy who played the double-tracked lead guitars on Just Like Me quit the hottest band in the US at the peak of their popularity to voluntarily join the military. I'd say there was a good chance he was not one of the guys burning their draft cards that year.
Artist: Circus Maximus
Title: Short-Haired Fathers
Source: LP: Circus Maximus
Writer(s): Bob Bruno
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1967
Circus Maximus was formed in Greenwich Village by guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist Bob Bruno and guitarist Jerry Jeff Walker in 1967. The group originally wanted to call itself the Lost Sea Dreamers, but changed it after the Vanguard Records expressed reservations about signing a group with the initials LSD. Of the eleven tracks on the band's debut LP, only four were written by Walker, and those were in more of a folk-rock vein. Bruno's seven tracks, on the other hand, are true gems of psychedelia, ranging from the jazz-influenced Wind to the proto-punk rocker Short-Haired Fathers. The group fell apart after only two albums, mostly due to the growing musical differences between Walker and Bruno. Walker, of course, went on to become one of the most successful songwriters of the country-rock genre. As for Bruno, he's still in New York City, concentrating more on the visual arts in recent years.
Artist: Frank Zappa
Title: Lumpy Gravy- Part II
Source: LP: Lumpy Gravy
Writer(s): Frank Zappa
Label: Verve
Year: 1968
I remember seeing the third Mothers of Invention album, We're Only It In For The Money, on the record racks in 1968, and wondering about the word balloon on the back cover with the words "Is this phase one of Lumpy Gravy?" meant. Although the Base Exchange at Ramstein Air Base had a pretty decent record and tape section, there was no sign of anything called Lumpy Gravy anywhere in the store. It wasn't until years later that I actually saw my first copy of Zappa's official solo album (although actually credited to Francis Vincent Zappa on the cover) and even longer until I actually got to hear the album itself. Unlike We're Only In It For The Money, which is a series of short musical pieces performed by the Mothers of Invention, Lumpy Gravy is an audio collage made up of spoken word segments interspersed with orchestral music that had originally been released the previous year on 4-track cartridge (aka Muntz Stereo Pack) by Capitol Records, and also named Lumpy Gravy.
Artist: Sound Solution
Title: Hide Your Face In Shame
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): John Todras
Label: Kapp
Year: 1969
Virtually nothing is known about the Sound Solution from Flushing, Queens, New York other than the fact that they released two singles. The first was a tune called Take A Walk With Me for the independent Strobe label in 1968. The second, Hide Your Face In Shame, was released on the much larger Kapp label the following year. Both were written by John Todras, who was presumably a member of the group itself.
Artist: Doors
Title: Peace Frog/Blue Sunday
Source: CD: Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mine (originally released on LP: Morrison Hotel)
Writer(s): Morrison/Kreiger
Label: Elektra/Rhino
Year: 1970
The Doors' Peace Frog, in a very basic sense, is actually two separate works of art. The track started off as an instrumental piece by guitarist Robbie Kreiger, recorded while the rest of the band was waiting for Jim Morrison to come up with lyrics for another piece. Not long after the track was recorded, producer Paul Rothchild ran across a poem of Morrison's called Abortion Stories and encouraged him to adapt it to the new instrumental tracks. Peace Frog, which appears on the album Morrison Hotel, leads directly into Blue Sunday, one of many poems/songs written by Morrison for Pamela Courson, his girlfriend/significant other/co-dependent substance abuser/whatever since 1965.
Artist: Sonny And Cher
Title: It's Gonna Rain
Source: Mono CD: Where The Action Is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-68 (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s): Sonny Bono
Label: Rhino (original label: Atco)
Year: 1965
Despite massive commercial success as half of the Sonny And Cher duo, Sonny Bono never got the respect he deserved as a producer, songwriter and all-around promotional genius. He did, after all, make a superstar out of Cher, despite the fact that there were (and are) literally thousands of vocalists with more raw talent. As far as production goes, Bono borrowed heavily from Phil Spector's techniques, yet came up with a sound all his own. The same could be said for his songwriting, which, when analyzed closely, is far more sophisticated than it at first appears to be. This can be heard on even the earliest Sonny And Cher recordings, such as It's Gonna Rain, a song which originally appeared as the B side to the duo's breakout hit I Got You Babe in 1965.
Artist: Chocolate Watchband
Title: Psychedelic Trip
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Loomis/Flores/Tolby/Aguilar/Andrijasevich
Label: Sundazed
Year: Recorded 1966, released 2012
Psychedelic Trip is essentially an early instrumental version of what would eventually become the title track for the Chocolate Watchband's debut album, No Way Out. Although Psychedelic Trip was a creation of the entire band, producer/manager Ed Cobb (the Ed Wood of psychedelic music) took sole writing credit for the song No Way Out.
Artist: Blues Magoos
Title: Albert Common Is Dead
Source: Mono LP: Electric Comic Book
Writer(s): Gilbert/Scala
Label: Mercury
Year: 1967
The second Blues Magoos LP, Electric Comic Book, was much in the same vein as their 1966 debut album, Psychedelic Lollipop, with a mix of fast and slow originals and a couple of cover songs, one of which was done in an extended rave-up style. The second side opener, Albert Common Is Dead, is a fast rocker (with a slowed down final chorus) about an average guy's decision to take to the road, leaving his former life behind. As many young people were doing exactly that during the summer of 1967, you might expect such a song to become somewhat of a soundtrack of its times, but with so many other songs filling that role, Albert Common Is Dead was largely overlooked by the listening public.
Artist: July
Title: The Way
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Tom Newman
Label: Epic
Year: 1968
Although not a commercial success while together, July is now considered an important part of British rock history, due to the subsequent successful careers of several of its members. The band originated in Ealing, London, UK as the Tomcats, which itself was made up of members of an earlier Tomcats combined with members of another group named Second Thoughts. They relocated to Spain in 1966, where they became known as Los Tomcats. At that time they were a fairly typical British R&B outfit, playing cover songs from artists like Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, but after returning to London began to take on a more psychedelic flavor. The band officially changed their name to July in 1968, signing with the Major Minor label and releasing two singles and one LP. The B side of the second of these singles was a tune called The Way. Written by guitarist/vocalist Tom Newman, the song has shown up on various compilation albums over the years. July disbanded in 1969, but Newman went on to record several solo LPs before becoming a producer. Among his credits as a producer are Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells, used in the film The Exorcist. Two other members of July, Tony Duhig and Jon Field, went on to form Jade Warrior, recording several albums for various labels throughout the 1970s.
Artist: Led Zeppelin
Title: Dazed And Confused
Source: CD: Led Zeppelin
Writer: Holmes/Page
Label: Atlantic
Year: 1969
For one of its final US gigs, the Yardbirds, featuring new guitarist Jimmy Page, played New York City in late 1966. One of the opening acts was a guy named Jake Holmes, who performed an original composition called Dazed And Confused. Over two years later a song with different lyrics but the same signature riff called Dazed And Confused appeared on the first Led Zeppelin album. Holmes was apparently unaware of this for several years, but finally took it to court and now gets a songwriting credit for the tune, if not the lyrics.
Artist: Byrds
Title: Eight Miles High
Source: LP: Nuggets Vol. 9-Acid Rock (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Fifth Dimension)
Writer(s): Clark/McGuinn/Crosby
Label: Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1966
Gene Clark's final contribution to the Byrds was his collaboration with David Crosby and Roger McGuinn, Eight Miles High. Despite a newsletter from the influential Gavin Report advising stations not to play this "drug song", Eight Miles High managed to hit the top 20 in 1966. The band members themselves claimed that Eight Miles High was not a drug song at all, but was instead referring to the experience of travelling by air. In fact, it was Gene Clark's fear of flying, especially over an ocean, that in part led to his leaving the Byrds.
Artist: Beatles
Title: Tomorrow Never Knows
Source: CD: Revolver
Writer: Lennon/McCartney
Label: Parlophone (original US label: Capitol)
Year: 1966
A few years ago I started to compile an (admittedly subjective) list of the top psychedelic songs ever recorded. Although I never finished ranking the songs, one of the top contenders for the number one spot was Tomorrow Never Knows from the Beatles' 1966 LP Revolver. The song is one of the first to use studio techniques such as backwards masking and has been hailed as a masterpiece of 4-track studio production.
Artist: Mauds
Title: You Don't Know Like I Know
Source: Mono CD: Oh Yeah! The Best Of Dunwich Records
Writer(s): Hayes/Porter
Label: Sundazed
Year: Recorded 1967, released 1991
Chicago's most popular white R&B cover band in the mid-1960s, the Mauds had a less than spectacular recording career. In fact, their best recordings were made for the Dunwich label in 1967, but went unreleased until 1991, when Sundazed put out a CD called Oh Yeah! The Best Of Dunwich Records. Among the song recorded was this version of the 1965 Sam And Dave hit, You Don't Know Like I Know, co-written by Isaac Hayes.
Artist: London Souls
Title: Someday
Source: CD: The London Souls
Writer(s): London Souls
Label: Soul On10
Year: 2011
Despite the implications of their name, the London Souls were actually a New York City band that was formed in 2008 by guitarist Tash Neal and drummer Chris St. Hilaire. The two met as teenagers, jamming with friends in rehearsal rooms rented by the hour. After recording a 16-song demo in 2009 they released their first actual album, The London Souls, in 2011. The duo made their mark by applying a 21st century sensibility to psychedelic era and classic rock concepts, resulting in songs like Someday. A second album, Here Come The Girls, was originally planned for a 2013 release, but was delayed until 2015 after Tash Neal was injured in a hit-and-run accident. Although they never officially disbanded, the London Souls have been inactive since 2018.
Artist: Sand Pebbles
Title: Bees Around The Honey
Source: CD: A Thousand Wild Flowers (originally released in Australia on CD: Ceduna)
Writer(s): Sand Pebbles
Label: Sensory Projects
Year: 2008
Neighbours is the longest-running drama series on Australian television, having aired its first episode in March of 1985. It is also the unlikely origin point for Sand Pebbles, a band formed in 2001 by three Neighbours screenwriters. Those three founding members, bassist Christopher Hollow, guitarist Ben Michael and drummer Piet Collins were soon joined by guitarist/vocalist Andrew Tanner. The band's fourth album, Ceduna, released in 2008, also featured guitarist/vocalist Tor Larsen. The following years the Sand Pebbles released A Thousand Wild Flowers, a compilation album made up of tracks from their previous releases such as Bees Around The Honey, as their first CD geared toward the US market.
Artist: Splinter Fish
Title: Milo's Sunset
Source: LP: Splinter Fish
Writer(s): Chuck Hawley
Label: StreetSound
Year: 1989
Albuquerque, NM, like most medium-sized cities, had a vibrant club scene throughout the rock and roll era, with many of these clubs featuring live music. Until the late 1980s, however, very few bands were able to find gigs performing their own material. This began to change, however, with the emergence of alternative bands such as Jerry's Kidz and F.O.R., and underground venues such as the Club REC and the refurbished El Rey theater. One of the best bands to emerge at this time was Splinter Fish. Formed by guitarist/vocalist Chuck Hawley in 1988, the band also featured Jeff Bracey on bass, former F.O.R. member Deb-O on vocals, and the prolific Zoom Crespin on drums. The group released one self-titled LP in 1989, which featured a strong set of tunes, including Milo's Sunset, a song somewhat reminiscent of the Beatles' Tomorrow Never Knows.
Artist: Mick Jagger
Title: Memo From Turner
Source: CD: Singles Collection-The London Years (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Jagger/Richards
Label: Abkco (original label: Decca)
Year: Recorded 1968, released 1970
Technically speaking, Memo From Turner is not a Rolling Stones song at all, since none of the instruments on the track are played by members of the band. Originally released in
England, Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand as a single by Mick Jagger in 1970, the tune was taken from the film Performance, in which Jagger plays a performer named Turner. Despite being recorded in Hollywood, the track was not made available in the US until 1989, when it appeared on Singles Collection: The London Years, which was a shame, as it features some nice slide guitar work from Ry Cooder, who, although already highly respected in the musicians' community at the time, could have really used the added mainstream exposure.
Artist: Johnny Winter
Title: Rollin' And Tumblin'
Source: LP: Progressive Heavies (originally released on LP: The Progressive Blues Experiment)
Writer(s): McKinley Morganfield
Label: United Artists (original labels: Sonobeat/Imperial)
Year: 1968
Johnny Winter's first album, The Progressive Blues Experiment, was originally released in 1968 on the Texas-based Sonobeat label. A ctitical success, it was picked up and reissued on the Imperial label a year later. Most of the songs on the album are covers of blues classics such as Muddy Waters's Rollin' And Tumblin'.
Artist: Big Brother and the Holding Company
Title: Down On Me (live)
Source: CD: Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-70 (originally released on LP: Joplin In Concert)
Writer: Trad. Arr. Joplin
Label: Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year: Recorded 1968, released 1972
Big Brother And The Holding Company's first album, featuring the single Down On Me, was recorded in 1967 at the studios of Mainstream Records, a medium-sized Chicago label known for its jazz recordings. At the time, Mainstream's engineers had no experience with a rock band, particularly a loud one like Big Brother, and vainly attempted to clean up the band's sound as best they could. The result was an album full of bland recordings sucked dry of the energy that made Big Brother and the Holding Company one of San Francisco's top live attractions. Luckily we have this live version of the tune recorded in Detroit in early 1968 and released on the 1972 album Joplin In Concert that captures the band at their peak, before powerful people with questionable motives convinced singer Janis Joplin that the rest of the group was (ahem) holding her back.
Artist: Ten Years After
Title: My Baby Left Me
Source: CD: Watt
Writer(s): Alvin Lee
Label: Chrysalis (original label: Deram)
Year: 1970
Although panned by the rock press, Ten Years After's sixth LP, Watt is, for my money, the last of their truly great albums, containing many tasty tunes, such as My Baby Left Me. Following the release of Watt on the Deram label, Ten Years After would switch to Columbia Records and enjoy greater commercial success. Personally, with the exception of a couple of songs, I find their Columbia material uninspired.
Artist: Animals
Title: Don't Bring Me Down
Source: LP: The Best Of Eric Burdon And The Animals-Vol. II (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Animalization)
Writer(s): Goffin/King
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1966
I originally bought the Animals Animalization album in early 1967 and immediately fell in love with the first song, Don't Bring Me Down. Written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Don't Bring Me Down is one of the few songs written for the Animals by professional songwriters that lead vocalist Eric Burdon actually liked.
Artist: Eric Burdon And The Animals
Title: A Girl Named Sandoz
Source: 45 RPM single B side
Writer(s): Burdon/Briggs/Weider/McCulloch/Jenkins
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1967
The original Animals officially disbanded at the end of 1966, but before long a new group, Eric Burdon And The Animals, had arrived to take its place. Unlike the original Animals, this new band wrote nearly all their own material, with credits going to the entire membership on every song. The first single from this new band was a song called When I Was Young, a semi-autobiographical piece with lyrics by Burdon that performed decently, if not spectacularly, on the charts in both the US and the UK. It was the B side of that record, however, a tune called A Girl Named Sandoz, that truly indicated what this new band was about. Sandoz was the name of the laboratory that originally developed and manufactured LSD, and the song itself is a thinly-veiled tribute to the mind-expanding properties of the wonder drug. It would soon become apparent that whereas the original Animals were solidly rooted in American R&B (with the emphasis on the B), this new group was pure acid-rock (with the emphasis on acid).
Artist: Eric Burdon and the Animals
Title: When I Was Young
Source: Mono LP: The Best of Eric Burdon and the Animals-Vol. II (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer: Burdon/Briggs/Weider/Jenkins/McCulloch
Label: M-G-M
Year: 1967
After the Animals disbanded in 1966, Eric Burdon set out to form a new band that would be far more psychedelic than the original group. The first release from these "New Animals" was When I Was Young. The song was credited to the entire band, a practice that would continue throughout the entire existence of the group that came to be called Eric Burdon And The Animals.
Artist: Moby Grape
Title: Fall On You
Source: LP: Moby Grape
Writer(s): Peter Lewis
Label: Columbia
Year: 1967
In a band overloaded with talent like Moby Grape was it's easy to overlook the contributions of the band's third guitarist, Peter Lewis. That would be a mistake, however. Although not as flashy as some of the other members, Lewis, the son of actress Loretta Young, showed his songwriting talents on tunes such as Fall On You from the first Moby Grape LP.
Artist: Who
Title: Rael 1
Source: CD: The Who Sell Out
Writer: Pete Townshend
Label: MCA (original label: Decca)
Year: 1967
The Who Sell Out, released in December 1967, was the last album by the group before their 1969 rock-opera Tommy. The last track on the LP, Rael, is itself a mini-opera that tells the story of a wealthy man who has taken on the role of a crusader, out to free his ancestral homeland from its current occupiers. He tells the captain of his ship to come back for him on Christmas Day to see if he is ready to return. If not, he tells the captain, the boat is yours. Of course the captain has no intention of returning, as he declares soon after putting back out to sea. The piece then goes into an instrumental passage that would be copied pretty much note for note on the Tommy album as part of the Underture. The track ends with a repeat of the owner's instructions to the captain. The events surrounding the recording of Rael have become the stuff of legend. The band spent an entire day recording and mixing the song, and were apparently so exhausted at the end of the session that they left without securing the multi-track master in a safe place. The cleaning woman came in the next morning and tossed the tape into the waste basket. She then emptied the ashtrays and other trash into the same waste basket. When the band came in around noon the recording engineer who had found the tape had the unenviable task of telling them what had happened. Pete Townsend was in a rage, and the engineer tried to placate him by saying "these things happen". Townshend then proceeded to throw a chair through the glass wall separating the studio from the control room, informing the engineer that "these things happen".
Artist: Left Banke
Title: Pretty Ballerina
Source: Stereo 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer: Michael Brown
Label: Smash
Year: 1967
The Left Banke, taking advantage of bandleader Michael Brown's industry connections (his father ran a New York recording studio), ushered in what was considered to be the "next big thing" in popular music in early 1967: Baroque Pop. After their debut single, Walk Away Renee, became a huge bestseller, the band followed it up with Pretty Ballerina, which easily made the top 20 as well. Subsequent releases were sabotaged by a series of bad decisions by Brown and the other band members that left radio stations leery of playing any record with the words "Left Banke" on the label.
Artist: Glass Family
Title: Nightwrap For Dee
Source: Mono LP: Electric Band (bonus track)
Writer(s): Glass Family
Label: Maplewood
Year: Recorded 1967, released 2015
In early 60s West Los Angeles, a young man named Jim Callon and his friends David Capilouto and Gary Green decided to form a band to play surf music at parties and maybe make a little money in the process. They couldn't come up with a permanent band name, and would end up using whatever name suited them at the time. Several years later, while attending grad school at Cal State L.A., they finally decided on the Glass Family, and established a local reputation as the "perpetual opening band" for groups like the Doors, Vanilla Fudge, and the Grateful Dead. They signed a contract with Warner Brothers in 1967 to record an album with producer Richard Podolor, who had previously worked with bands like Steppenwolf and the Chocolate Watchband, among others. They presented the album to the shirts at Warner Brothers, who promptly rejected it and told them to go back into the studio and come up with something more commercially viable. The result was an album called Electric Band that was released in early 1969. In 2015, a new lable called Maplewood Records decided to reissue Electric Band as a double LP that included both the previously released LP and the rejected original album. I personally prefer the original 1967 tracks like Nightwrap For Dee, which is a classic example of instrumental psychedelia.
