Electric Sailor

A Blog Too Far

2008-03-21T12:44:00.000-07:00

Since this blog keeps taking extended "breaks," I've decided to lay it to rest, or, in the network parlance, place it "on hiatus." While I would love to spend the time to make the website what it really ought to be (a blend of reviews and writings on psychedelic music new and old), right now I already tend to three other blogs: the official Of Montreal blog, which I keep promising myself I'll spend more time developing; the film blog Kill the Snark; and most frequently, the Elephant 6 blog Optical Atlas, for which I've also started creating a podcast series. And I have an exhausting and stressful day job! I'm only human. My apologies to those who wanted more from this site, and if you still want to get in touch with me, you can contact me here.

Deek Hoi - The Golden Country

2008-02-28T18:15:00.000-08:00

Knoxville Tennessee's Deek Hoi have released The Golden Country, an 8-track album dominated by banjo and sinister bass, with dreary, half-sick harmonica and vocals to match. Those vocals are split between Jen Rock and Danny Coy, also of Kentucky's spectacular Big Fresh, and Big Fresh's John Ferguson, also in the Apples in Stereo and Ulysses, contributes to the CD as well. Rock and Coy's songs sound like Appalachian folk songs filtered through the sensibilities of 60's psych-rock and 70's CBGB's acts. The songs are catchy, but they're also mesmerizing. "Eiea" hits the sweet spot with its dreamy background vox; instant single "California" falls more on the nightmarish side of the equation with its toy piano and mysteriously simple lyrics and singalong chorus. Two-parter "A House a Home" will have you slamming your tambourine slowly in accompaniment. It's perfect lo-fi ear music, and all kind of unexpectedly great. Highly recommended.

MP3: Deek Hoi - California
Deek Hoi MySpace
Buy The Golden Country at CDBaby

Two from Paper Garden Records

2008-02-23T06:44:00.000-08:00

Nashville's Darla Farmer are releasing their debut album, Rewiring the Electric Forest, March 4, and it's hypnotic, rocking, tragic, otherworldly. I am not exactly sure I have the slightest clue what it's about, but I can't stop listening to it. Lead singer/guitarist Clint Wilson's lyrics are intensely descriptive and eloquent, sometimes screamed at such a pitch, the words compressed so tightly, that they can scarcely be understood; at other times they unwind slowly like a rusty coiled wire and present emotions and characters that are strikingly vivid. The most apt song in the collection might be "Dirty Keys," the album's centerpiece, which describes a frothing-mad circus that turns against its audience, blocking the exits and forcing them to confront its horrors. This is exactly the kind of music a mad circus would make. Darla Farmer uses an arsenal of instruments, but its two primary weapons are a blaring horn section of trombone and trumpet, and sweet violin strings pleading and pulling the assaulted listener back. And if it all seems much too much, Wilson's vocals, constantly reciting stories straight out of Edgar Allan Poe, make it all riveting. An emotional pitch is reached on the improbably named and improbably moving "The Cow That Drank Too Much," in which Wilson opines:

Everything is falling fatefully/I see the past is chasing me/Must meet her while I sleep/And face the truth/In between every dream

This is the kind of music that might exist between dreams--reveries and nightmares waking you in a sweat, confused, exhausted.

MP3: Darla Farmer - History
Darla Farmer MySpace

Darla Farmer - Upcoming Dates

03.04.08 Nashville, TN @ Exit In (Album Release Party)
03.13.08 Austin, TX @ Maggie Mae's (SXSW)
03.15.08 Austin, TX @ Lucky Lounge
03.25.08 New York, NY @ Club Midway

From the same label and at the other end of the sonic spectrum is Doylestown, Pennsylvania's Peasant. Damien DeRose is a tremendously gifted singer/songwriter, and his new album, On the Ground (available February 26), is mostly stripped-down acoustic folk, occasionally opening up for a wider, pleasing pop sound on tracks like "We're Good" and "Those Days." But there's also the haunting, harpsichord-driven "Birds," and the ethereal "Missing All You Are" (which reminds of Michael Penn) that speaks to a more subtle experimentation with melody and sound. It's a lovely album. Peasant will be playing a handful of live shows before heading overseas--U.S. dates are below.

MP3: Peasant - Those Days
Peasant MySpace

Peasant - Upcoming Dates

02.28.08 New York, NY @ Piano's
02.29.08 New Hope, PA @ John n' Peter's
03.01.08 Doylestown, PA @ The Classi Cigar Parlor (Album Release Party)
03.07.08 Bronxville, NY @ Sarah Lawrence College
03.08.08 Moorestown, NJ @ Emancipation Rocklamation
03.10.08 New York, NY @ Union Hall
03.15.08 Austin, TX @ Lucky Lounge

Two from New York

2008-01-22T17:04:00.000-08:00

I'm a sucker for rich baritones, and like Gary Olson of Brooklyn's The Ladybug Transistor, Murder Mystery's Jeremy Coleman's got a rich, velvety baritone that's just about perfect. He's from New York too. On the band's debut album, Are You Ready for the Heartache Cause Here it Comes, they bridge the gap between The Kinks and modern indie pop, touching on influences as diverse as Tom Petty and The Cars along the way. Their most modern-sounding (and flat-out fun) track is "Love Astronaut," which is, well, about an astronaut looking for love--the lyrics are direct, the synths glittering, the melody pretty, the vocals gorgeous. Note to my fellow Wisconsinites: they're playing the Annex in Madison this Friday, January 25.

MP3: Murder Mystery - Love Astronaut
Murder Mystery MySpace

Also from New York is Brooklyn's Boy Genius, who have just released an EP that has grown on me like Tribbles, Eureka. Like Murder Mystery, this band has an affinity for simple, direct song craftsmanship, and yes, that's what I love, but they rock a bit harder, and lead vocalist Jason K's got a more rugged voice. Oh, and he has a female vocalist backing him up, and she shares his last name ("K"), much like Murder Mystery's backing vocalist Laura Coleman who is obviously of some relationship to Jeremy Coleman....hey, can you tell that I wrote lots of compare/contrast essays in college? This is one of those CDs where you think, upon first listen, "These guys are pretty good." And you spin it again and think, "God, this is a really great band." The most immediately singalongable--and representative--track is the terrific "Radio Silence," though I'm particularly drawn to their moving EP closer, "Great Lakes," which has a surprising grandeur. You will hear more from them, I hope.

MP3: Boy Genius - Radio Silence
Boy Genius MySpace

Tullycraft - Every Scene Needs a Center

2008-01-16T19:25:00.000-08:00

Let me tell you why I'm now in love with Strictly Discs down on Monroe Street here in Madison. When they didn't have the new Tullycraft album, Every Scene Needs a Center, they got it for me in two days. Then they fucking removed the sticker seal from the top of the case without leaving any adhesive behind. Then they stamped my little card which says that I get a free CD once I've bought 11 more (okay, 10--I had to buy that Camera Obscura album when they didn't have Tullycraft...just had to). Oh, plus they've got a special room of "imports" (i.e., lotsa Beatles bootlegs) hidden in the back, like the secret porno section of the Family Video across the street. This is how you do a mom and pop store, folks. It should also be mentioned that the only reason they didn't have the Tullycraft is that they'd just sold out of it. That speaks as much to the quality of Every Scene Needs a Center as it does the taste of Strictly Discs.

So I had this album for a couple of days and then loaned it to my friend Andrea, who had never heard of Tullycraft before and claims to have subsequently played it three times in a row, so immediately enamored was she of this "young and indie famous" Seattle band. I've tried to show more restraint with the album, but it's difficult. When you fall for Tullycraft, you fall hard. I fell at the last Athens PopFest. Sure, I could already sing "fuck me I'm twee" along with the band, but it was the overwhelming enthusiasm and sugar-high energy of Chris Munford that won me over, blasting out his amazing mini pop songs in-between aggressively cheery and hilarious banter. At a certain point, just after leading the audience through the singalong "If You Take Away the Make-Up (Then the Vampires They Will Die)," he invited one member of the crowd onto the stage for a marriage proposal--accepted, luckily--and Chris told me the next day that he'd never been so nervous, because "what if she said no?!" Actually, during a Tullycraft concert it's fairly safe to make such sweeping gestures. It's difficult to think soberly at such an event. Speaking of which, I'd almost forgotten that Bunnygrunt was buying the band shots during the performance, and Chris Munford drunk is just twice as much Chris Munford. (The following evening, Tullycraft and Folklore reciprocated by bringing shots onstage for Bunnygrunt. PopFest was kind of insane.)

Here's some music from Every Scene Needs a Center, courtesy Tullycraft's website--which blogs more regularly and consistently than I can here--including the lovely little video for "Georgette Plays a Goth." Now please write to the band and try to convince them to tour more often.

Tullycraft - The Punks are Writing Love Songs

Tullycraft - Georgette Plays a Goth

The Real Tuesday Weld

2008-01-11T17:47:00.001-08:00

I've been a fan of Stephen Coates' The Real Tuesday Weld since hearing a few tracks via some Kindercore compilations years ago (Coates' first American label), and immediately falling in love. It's important that you swoon or fall head over heels when listening to The Real Tuesday Weld (so named because "Tuesday Weld" was already taken by another band), because that's what his music is about. Well, love and death, anyway. And drink. He sings torch songs and French-styled pop music laced with dance beats, clarinet, piano, trumpet, synthesizer, sound effects, old-movie-dialogue...damp umbrellas and lit cigarettes most especially. His is a very cinematic sound, in other words. More than any other music I've ever heard, his sounds like black-and-white movies, in particular gritty, jaded noir of the 40's, and continental romantic films of the 50's.

Terminally Ambivalent Over You (from Where Psyche Meets Cupid, 2001)

He calls himself "the Clerkenwell Kid," and each of his albums invokes the name at one point or another, as a running gag of sorts. This really came to blossom in I, Lucifer (2003), one of those rare things--a soundtrack to a novel, in this case a sardonic tale of Lucifer's visiting Earth as written by Glen Duncan. The concept album becomes a grand excuse for Coates to embrace his alter ego while merging it with the Devil, as on "The Life and Times of the Clerkenwell Kid," a tall tale autobiography in which he describes his own birth: "Disposed of the doctor/made out with the nurse/yeah I was born a bastard/and I just got worse." But his Miltonesque Satan is tragic; he falls in love with a mortal, as Death does in Death Takes a Holiday, and as angels have made a habit (Wings of Desire, The Bishop's Wife). So while there are mischievous songs like this and the nonsense scat of "Bathtime in Clerkenwell," there's also much toy piano, strings, duets, and heartbreaking melodies. The album is almost entirely atmosphere, drenched in fog and Coates' trademark breathy/raspy vocals. It's a delicate whisper of an album.

Easter Parade (from I, Lucifer)

"Bathtime in Clerkenwell" became an award-winning animated video by Alex Budovsky. Budovsky got the job after designing a video for "Terminally Ambivalent Over You" on his own volition and sending it to Coates. His video for "Clerkenwell" is ingenious, with simple black cut-outs on a stark white background staging a siege of London by fascistic cuckoo clock birds. What I love most about the short is how quickly it moves, rapidly developing its linear narrative into extreme, Pythonesque proportions. (It's included on The Animation Show Volume 1 DVD on Paramount Home Video, and is featured in a much lower-res video on the I, Lucifer enhanced CD.) Budovsky has since become Coates' right-hand animator, and among their works is a collaborative video for the popular favorite "Brazil."

2005 saw the release of The Return of the Clerkenwell Kid, a reintroduction of Coates' earliest material which went out of print in the States. As added incentive to fans, the songs are remixes (even the earlier American version of Where Psyche Meets Cupid featured slightly remixed versions of the original U.K. album) mixed in with newer songs that, frankly, sound more modern and don't quite gel with the others. On the other hand, the newer songs are fantastic. "On Lavender Hill" is a bittersweet reverie about an Ex, and "Something Beautiful" brings Coates into Moby territory while successfully retaining his own sharp sensibilities. On the whole, the album serves a fine introduction to The Real Tuesday Weld's charms, although it skips the essential "Terminally Ambivalent Over You" (admittedly, already redone on I, Lucifer).

On Lavender Hill (from The Return of the Clerkenwell Kid)

Now he's just released his best album by far, The London Book of the Dead. Like I, Lucifer, it acts as a concept album, but more in its unity from beginning to end than in any overt thematic relevance. It's another hushed whisper of an album, but the quietest songs are among his most beautiful: "Blood Sugar Love," "Bringing the Body Back Home," "Dorothy Parker Blue." And when he soars, the album's busted neon really begins to shine: "Last Words" is quite striking, setting the tone for the album's somber but moving final sequence, ruminating on death much as I, Lucifer moved inexorably toward "The Pearly Gates." Speaking of the dead, it is curious to note that the majority of his songbook consists of music that would be fitting for a funeral. Mind you--a sexy, rainy funeral ridden with betrayal, murder, and rebuffed advances, but nevertheless a funeral to attend.

Dorothy Parker Blue (from The London Book of the Dead)

The Real Tuesday Weld - Bathtime in Clerkenwell

Eight Arms to Hold You

2008-01-05T09:10:00.000-08:00

[I just posted this over at my film blog, but I'm posting it here as well since it might have some interest to Electric Sailor readers...]

Help! is a very, very odd film, but one-of-a-kind in the best of ways. It is the Beatles' second, and the last big production with their full involvement. American Richard Lester had directed their prior hit, A Hard Day's Night, and had made that film a quasi-documentary about their life in and out of hotel rooms, clubs, trains, cars, and concert halls (with one liberating moment in the open daylight, set to "Can't Buy Me Love"). When he was asked to do a follow-up, every bit the quickie as the former film--since the Beatles might be just a temporary fad--his own artistic restlessness led him to make not a carbon copy but a completely opposite work. A Hard Day's Night is cinéma-vérité, loose, rough around the edges, realistic with a satirical sensibility, with a script that sounded improvised, and cinematography in stark black-and-white. Help! is in bright, beautiful, color, rigorously scripted and structured, resolutely absurdist, a piece of pop art. It is set almost entirely outdoors, whether outside Stonehenge, in the Alps, or in the Bahamas.

If A Hard Day's Night is smothered in cigarette smoke, Help! has the cannabis aroma of the Beatles' new drug of choice, recently introduced to them by Bob Dylan. The Dylan influence is even evident in "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away," John Lennon's Dylan homage, and veiled ode to closeted manager Brian Epstein. While John strums that song in the band's London flat, which looks like something out of Yellow Submarine (1968), Paul leans against a bookcase with a secret panel that only reveals more books (some of them copies of In His Own Write by John Lennon), Ringo hits a tambourine from inside a pit in the floor, where sits his sunken bed, and George lounges on the couch next to Eleanor Bron, purse in her lap, ever dignified while George makes cartoonish bedroom eyes at her. Leo McKern peeks out from under a manhole, still hunting the Beatles down. It's really one of the first music videos, although that line's a blurry one as rock musicals overtook Cole Porter and Rogers & Hammerstein; in the supplements to the film's latest DVD release, Lester says that in the 80's he was sent a "scroll" pronouncing that he was the father of MTV--and he sent it back to the network demanding a blood test. But it's hard to argue that Lester wasn't brilliant at shooting the Beatles in performance. Each song in Help! sits comfortably on a velvet cushion; the plot is secondary and the music's the thing. The title song is performed by the band in traditional Ed Sullivan Show-stance, in a white room with Ringo at the famous logo-adorned drum kit, but the black-and-white is interrupted by red darts flung at the screen by the crazed cult led by McKern; sublimely, we briefly see their female human sacrifice pining on the altar like any teenage Beatles fan. (I almost wish that the brief prologue had been excised so that this would be our introduction to the color of Help!, presenting a neat transition from AHDN's B&W.) Shortly thereafter, the band steps into a mock-up of their Abbey Road studio to perform "You're Going to Lose That Girl"; the lights are dimmed, and the band sings through rapturously filmed lens flares and spotlights, singing into the mic in extreme close-up. Rather than pulling back to see the full band and the entire studio, Lester concentrates on fractioning the performance into these close-ups, as he slips in and out of focus. It's one of the most intoxicating and inspired pieces of musical filmmaking you'll ever see. But "Ticket to Ride" is the most famous sequence, a hit single performed while the Beatles literally tackle the slopes on skis. The band had never been on skis before, and Lester filmed them while they were learning--going sideways down the bunny slopes and tripping forward into the snow. The props are limited to a piano set up in the snow, which the Beatles climb into and around, but the most innovative moment comes when musical notes are projected onto telephone wires that frame the top of the screen.

There is a plot, it should be mentioned, which takes this long to describe: a cult and a duo of mad scientists are after Ringo's ring. It's an excuse for obvious gags--Rube Goldbergian plots by the cult to sever Ringo's finger, hand, or arm--and James Bond parodies and pastiches, the trend of the day. The gags, in particular the final one in which the film is dedicated to the Singer sewing machine, anticipate Monty Python's Flying Circus, although there was already a rich tradition of dry, surrealist humor in British stage, radio, and television. From the tradition comes Bron, who plays Ahme, one of the cultists who infiltrates the Beatles' inner circle; she's a gifted comic actress, but is tasked with playing it straight against the non-sequitur-spouting Fab Four, who are a bit too bizarre to be the Marx Brothers surrogates that contemporary critics envisioned. Is Ringo, as so many have asserted, the best actor of the group? Perhaps, although he's given a "type" to play in both films--the hapless schlub who doesn't understand why everything bad has to happen to him. (Worse, even his fellow Beatles try to pursuade him that he doesn't really use that ring finger very often, and could stand to miss it!) Every time I watch a Beatles film I'm impressed by John, who doesn't so much "act" as confidently deliver his sarcastic one-liners. It's the confidence that impresses me; he has none of the awkwardness of Paul and George, and convinces that this is who he really is. Which must be acting. To their credit, George allows his shirt to be ripped right off in one scene, and later Paul is shrunk straight out of his clothes, taking a nude bath in an ashtray. Teenage girls, take note.

The only real flaw in Help! is that there isn't more of their music: a whole side B is missing from the film, which includes "I've Just Seen a Face" (belatedly receiving its cinematic bow in Julie Taymor's Across the Universe), "Act Naturally," and "Yesterday." Not that "Yesterday" could really work in a film stuffed with sight gags, car chases, and bad puns. The real wonder of Help! is in the joy the film exudes. There's one moment, during a performance of "The Night Before," when Ringo shivers from the cold and then smiles widely at someone off-camera. That these couple of seconds remain in the film is no coincidence; this is what Lester was after. During the musical sequences he wanted to show the band's charisma, their real personalities, their real joy in performance, how good these songs are, and just why we love the Beatles so much. As a result, Help! and its companion film are the best possible document of the band, however fictionalized and glued to paper-thin plots. Here you can see them performing for each other, not for an auditorium filled with screaming girls who drown out their music. Shortly after this, the band would begin to tire of each other, and jealousies and bitter feelings would begin to intrude and drive them apart. Later, John would say that the song "Help!" was meant to have a slower tempo, a more serious tone; it was a song about a nervous breakdown. Instead, it's a marvelous pop song, a pinnacle of the art. Whatever the reality, the fiction of Help!--Richard Lester's Help!--is a snapshot of the band as we'd like to remember them.

Two from Little Pocket Records

2007-12-16T08:12:00.000-08:00

Little Pocket Records is a Toledo, Ohio-based microlabel managed by The Hat Company, a lo-fi pop band that's also behind the city's local indie Popfest. The Hat Company has produced a marvelous full-length, (ironically) titled Fair Weathered Friends, with ten tracks of brief, tightly-constructed songs. You will want to check any cyncism at the door; "When I said I was cynical, you know that was just one big joke," Kyle Bliss sings on "A Cloud in Minor," ooh-ing backing vocals backing up his sentiments. Often his intentionally listless vocals drag against the tempo and pull each song into a dreamier terrain. Standouts include "Cutest Couple on Campus" and "Tide," a lovely ode to a detergent that gets all the stain out. ("That stain is totally out of sight.") Very good twee for those who keep the twee flame burning.

Labelmates The Homeville Circle are move overtly ambitious, deliberately evoking America in the early-20th century with tales of immigrants and disasters big and small. Midwestern Shambling is a concept album based on an antique postcard, following John and Sadie as they struggle to survive in the Midwest of the 1920's. You've got to love a band that works the great stock market crash into their lyrics. But those lyrics are smart and eloquent, and the sound, by sharp contrast, is full-blooded rock and roll. The effect is like an absinthe-fuelled fever dream, manic, pitched to a nervous breakdown. The limited-edition release of Midwestern Shambling has only 100 copies, each decorated with an antique photograph pasted to a yellow square envelope.

MP3: The Hat Company - Tide
MP3: The Homeville Circle - Bloodmoon

Jack Ohly

2007-12-16T06:29:00.000-08:00

All the possibility of the low-bowed upright bass are explored by Jack Ohly on his first album, Now Down. It evokes a subterranean world, or a rotting junkyard, or an empty urban alley, but most of all an encompassing loneliness. Everything thrums and clatters in Ohly's music, or smacks as sharply as the rain; his sounds are lush and endless. In addition to the upright bass, he also plays the piano, viola, and cavaquinho, even an Asian zither, and I suppose you're meant to listen with headphones, because the sounds corner you like a motley mob. But his primary instrument is his voice, which evokes Tom Waits, and seems ancient. He has Waits' storytelling knack, too--the songs feel like folk tales, though he's not as wordy as that might suggest. There is quiet menace and strangeness on the opening tracks: "Describe (so loud)," and the epic, shapeshifting melodies of "High Rise." "The Same Light" is an absolutely gorgeous Leonard Cohen-esque love song, so delicate it might break. Similar muted emotion seeps through his cover of the Brazilian folk song "Sereno de Madrugada," in which he's accompanied by Tanya Nagahawatte on vocals. The nocturnal blues of "Milk of the Moon" have a demonic sparkle, as rich as anything on the album. A beautiful release from Royal Rhino Flying Records; Cloud Records also offers limited edition hand-painted copies.

MP3: Jack Ohly - Milk of the Moon

Lavender Diamond Vs. John Waters

2007-12-13T18:26:00.000-08:00

I drove from Madison down to Milwaukee last night to catch something called "A John Waters Christmas," John Waters of course being the cult film director best known for Pink Flamingos and the original Hairspray. Every year Waters gives a touring monologue which is, essentially, just his extremely esoteric and/or blasphemous and/or pornographic Christmas list, with plenty of digressions to stories of Christmases past, such as breaking into homes with obese cross-dresser Divine and opening all the presents they find. (This year the highlight of the monologue was his story of recently visiting the Vatican gift shop; when told that he couldn't have a receipt for a postcard, he had to be restrained as he lunged at the clerk: "What, are you channeling your aggression against gays?!") I arrived at the venue a bit dizzy and confused; I couldn't locate the Turner Hall Ballroom from the street, so I paid $20 for parking at the nearest garage I could find to the address, competing for spaces with people attending some Bradley Center event and "High School Musical: The Musical," or whatever that was. Luckily we were wrangled by some people in thick winter coats asking "John Waters? John Waters?" and pushing us into a line to an elevator, which took us to the third floor of an old brick building, with a small, undecorated dome in the ceiling, high windows with purple velvet curtains, and walls that had been scorched black by multiple fires. (Waters later commented that it looked like a Church of Satan.) I wasn't too surprised that it was a music venue, with a bar in the back and a merch stand (and folding chairs arranged in rows), but I was surprised to see a band selling its shirts and CDs. "Is there an opening band?" I asked the girl sitting next to me. She shrugged: "Maybe he just has a backing band." No one seemed aware that accompanying Waters on this mini-tour was Lavender Diamond, the irony-leaning hippies from L.A., just recently signed to Matador Records.

When lead chanteuse Becky Stark crept onto the stage in a white dress with a golden-colored belt that looked like it might belong to Wonder Woman, the audience seemed skeptical, aloof. Mind you, the audience was a bizarre mixture of urbanites and suburbanites, college kids and dropout punks, straight and gay, cross-dressers and the transgendered, drunks, a spiky-haired man who wondered aloud if he was almost to the age when he shouldn't be playing in a heavy metal band, and one Santa Claus. It was a tough audience. Stark said, "We're Lavender Diamond--we haven't met," while grinning nervously. She made anxious small talk about the mic stand that was too short, and on a whim sat on the stage to meet its height. A good portion of the crowd was wondering just what this was. Ironic comedy? Camp? Then she swung into the lilting "Garden Rose":

I'll never stop a bullet, but a bullet might stop me/

Some laughter issued from segments of the menagerie that thought they had her figured out, and Becky smiled back at them uncertainly, because at least they were listening:

I'll never drink the ocean, but the ocean might drink me/
And I'll never raise a portrait to a gentleman in blue/
And I'll never sing a love song for a love that isn't true.

And then it dawns on portions of the audience that this is more Patsy Cline than an obscure wonder from the John Waters Christmas album. It's a gorgeous, sincere song; Becky Stark is funny, but she is always sincere. The rest of the band's set proceeded like this: giddy dialogue with the audience delivered like an indie rock Gracie Allen, and then a song like a sucker punch, with a voice escaping her body that seems to belong to a different being entirely. When she reached "Open Your Heart," her eminently likable pop single, she proceeded to dance about the stage, oblivious to an audience that remained seated or, criminally, lurked by the bar talking loudly. It was an unexpected complement to John Waters' ethos: an outsider dancing to her own tune as much for her sake as those few who were on the same wavelength--those that whistled appreciatively when she was done.

Lavender Diamond's debut album, Imagine Our Love, was released this year by Matador to positive notices, and they've already toured with bands such as the Decemberists. Their keyboardist is a comic book artist whom Stark has also enlisted to draw comic strips for their website, where she also blogs about peace and love in a meandering, endearing way, letting you know she's aware you think it's a joke, and also letting you know that it isn't.

Lavender Diamond - Open Your Heart

Excerpts from a Teenage Opera

2007-09-22T16:49:00.000-07:00

One of the great "what ifs" of the psychedelic era is the ever-unfinished psychedelic magnum opus, The Teenage Opera. Its potential was embodied on a hit single released in the U.K., "Excerpt from a Teenage Opera" by Keith West and Mark Wirtz. Wirtz was a record producer; West, the leader of Tomorrow, one of the great psych bands to emerge from London at the height of the movement. The "Teenage Opera" was the brainchild of Wirtz, who was given carte blanche at EMI to create a concept album that would be sort of a rock opera storybook, with the various inhabitants of a fictional village having their stories recounted through lushly-orchestrated songs. Imagine if the Beatles had made a proper Yellow Submarine soundtrack (in fact, Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick contributed to the project). Wirtz enlisted West, who sang vocals on "Grocer Jack," aka "Excerpt from a Teenage Opera." The expensive single featured soaring orchestration in the style of George Martin and a children's choir singing the chorus. There was even a promotional film. The B-side was a Mark Wirtz instrumental, "Theme from a Teenage Opera."

I imagine the idea was to continue the project as a series of singles until the full-blown album essentially paid for itself, but the follow-up single, "Sam," underperformed, and EMI decided the project was not worth the investment. (Or perhaps they saw that the psychedelic fad was coming to an end.) The Teenage Opera was cancelled. Tomorrow split apart, partly out of resentment: the "Grocer Jack" single was more popular than Tomorrow's LP, and the crowds who caught them on tour wanted them to play West's solo hit, which the band refused to do (and couldn't, logistically, anyway). West briefly pursued a solo career until public interest waned.

The Tomorrow album is excellent, and holds up well today (it was reissued on CD in 1999 with many bonus tracks, but, glaringly, not the "Teenage Opera" singles). Their frenetic, LSD-tinged single "White Bicycle" has become a standard on 60's psych-rock compilations. But "Excerpt from a Teenage Opera" and "Sam," though dated, are fun to revisit. The children's chorus is schmaltzy as hell, but the vivid production--particularly the wintry, Christmasy feel of "Sam"--effectively conjurs the feeling of listening to a strange, sad radio play once heard in your childhood. "Sam" might be the better track, for its sonic ambition, though at the same time it strictly follows the formula of "Teenage Opera," which is why it's easy to understand why the public might have grown tired of the concept. The entire album, which Wirtz now describes as an epic science fiction story, remains unfinished, although a compilation of Wirtz recordings was released as A Teenage Opera a few years ago. Wirtz has claimed it does not match his vision of what the project was supposed to have been. That will have to remain a pipe dream.

Keith West - Excerpt from a Teenage Opera (Grocer Jack)
Keith West - Sam

Here's Tomorrow's second--and mind-blowing--single, if you need a chaser.

Tomorrow - Revolution

Piper at the Gates of Dawn 40th Anniversary Edition

2007-09-14T12:47:00.000-07:00

Just a few quick words about the new Pink Floyd/Piper at the Gates of Dawn re-release, in time for the anniversary of '67.

Personally, I consider this to be one of the most treasured albums in my collection, alongside the best of the Beatles, the Zombies, etc. Those who dismiss Pink Floyd after having heard some of their prog-rock era material--or even just a fleeting listen to the earlier material--need to pay more attention to Syd Barrett and what he was doing: not just with his scorching guitar, but in terms of songwriting, which was completely original. Whether or not it was mental imbalance behind it, the creativity in the earliest Pink Floyd material is astonishing, as well as inspiring. Listen to "Bike" and you have the best example. Barrett died last year, and left us with very few recordings to appreciate his genius, but Piper has always been the treasure chest.

The band has always been reluctant to release special editions of their albums, although it's become standard for any other 60's band. (Even the Beatles eventually came through.) An anniversary edition of this album at first seemed like an answer to my long-held prayers. The result is a little disappointing, but with enough pluses to recommend it. There are two anniversary editions: first up, and released a week earlier, is a 2-disc version in a jewel case, which features the much-sought-after mono version of the album on the 2nd disc. No bonus tracks, although the mono is a revelation, as new details are revealed in the remixing. Some of the songs merely sound flatter, but others have a distinctly different texture from the originals, with plenty of little sonic surprises for long-time fans of the album. You'll have to discover them on your own. It's the same album, but viewed through a different shade of cellophane.

A third, bonus disc is available if you spring for the more expensive edition, which packages everything in a cloth-cover book, with glossy, full-color pages featuring lyrics, photos, and even a removable reproduction of a notebook of Syd Barrett's from 1965, replete with poetry, prose, drawings and collage. (One page is left out, due to rights issues.) All of this is nice, but a most valuable feature would be liner notes detailing the production of the album--again, standard for most 60's album reissues. The third CD features the early singles: cross-dressing "Arnold Layne," "Candy and a Currant Bun," "See Emily Play" (one of my big favorites, although I doubt the band feels the same), "Apples and Oranges," "Paint Box," plus alternate versions of "Interstellar Overdrive" (two) and "Matilda Mother." That last track has almost completely different lyrics.

Missing are "Vegetable Man" and "Scream Thy Last Scream," which is a little strange, as they're among the most important unreleased tracks in the band's history from a music archivist's point of view. We can hold out (dim) hope that they'll be released on a reissue of Saucerful of Secrets. But the bonus CD is barely over half an hour, leaving plenty of room. In the meantime, what the box set does offer is a closer look at one of the most important albums of 1967, allowing you to unfold its layers panel by panel, scrutinizing the ornate details. If you're a fan, take the plunge and buy it--it sounds spectacular on uncompressed CD.

The Winks

2007-09-11T18:44:00.000-07:00

Up in Canada there's been something of a musical renaissance afoot, and one of my favorites of this movement is a band that considers the mandolin and the cello to be its primary weapons of war. They're the Winks, led by Tyr Jami and Todd Macdonald, and their record Birthday Party would easily qualify as one of my favorites of the year. The trick, you see, is that even though they might remind you of Arcade Fire by listening to their standout track "Guitar Swing," what this record's really about is gently pulsating landscapes, surrealist lyrics, and left-field arrangements. They're unpredictable, restlessly creative, and swarming in every direction like the bizarre dream parades depicted in a Studio Ghibli film. And they're on tour! I think I might be heading down to a certain little art gallery in Chicago to see them perform, if they don't add a Madison date soon.

The Winks - Guitar Swing
The Winks - Snakes (Revisited)

Check out their tour dates, and a cool live video, at their MySpace page.

A Real Electric Sailor Speaks Out

2007-09-07T15:45:00.001-07:00

It's kind of funny, sometimes you write a blog and you forget that your post goes out to the whole world. I've already made clear my love for the extremely short-lived band KAK (1967-1968), who released only one album, and wrote the song "Electric Sailor." One of my first posts on this music blog was dedicated to the band. Well, just a little while ago one of the members of KAK responded to that post to clarify my sketchy and partially inaccurate summary of the band's history, as well as to offer his own reflections on the group. It's a history worth reading. I give you KAK bassist Joseph D. Damrell:

* * *

Well, somehow I found myself reading this site, the title Electric Sailor having got my attention. See, I am the Joseph Damrell mentioned on this site. Kindly permit me to say that I never played with the Majestics. I was with Group B. (we released singles under the name the Spokes and Group B. on Scorpio, a Fantasy project) and before we formed Group B. I was also bassist in a 7-8 piece R&B / surf /jazz band called, originally enough, The Nomads. Preceding this and to some extent overlapping with it, I also played some piano bars in Sacramento as a pickup bassist with jazz trios, played country club etc. dance gigs with a group of professionals (MD, DDS, Psycho Prof., Esq, etc.) and while a student played with the Sac State Marching/Squatting Band (as we called it) under Norman Hunt. Group B opened for the Beach Boys and other groups at the Sac'to Memorial Auditorium. We met and schmoozed with the Kinks, Stones, Sonny and Cher, Dobie Gray, Bola Sete, Lenny Bruce.... As a Fantasy group, we were exposed to all sorts of characters, including whole blues, jazz, rock, and schmaltz roster on the label.

When it came to the minute that was KAK, our ineptitude as well as our ability to nail certain tunes on the KAK album in the time alloted by the all-wise, all-powerful, all-seeing forces (of squaredom, idiocy, and bureaucracy) behind Epic/Columbia were always enigmatic to a degree. The energy and enthusiasm are unmistakable, and if you labor under certain delusions about the era, this can be a real trip to listen to. However, the real deal about KAK was that we had and, semi-directionless, squandered an opportunity, while the "company" (in the persona of certain actors from New York and Hollywood) was always just interested in making money. This is not such a mystery, but this was '68. We had a hard time getting along because we were all dealing with what was coming down in '68. The day we finished the album Robert Kennedy was assassinated, which followed King, which followed...and the war raged on. We had no musical "scene" from which to reallly draw any strength, no community. The "movement" had already come under frontal assault. I was privileged to be in the company of these great musicians who played on KAK. They were heavy people, very cool, very committed, nothing bullshit about them. Some people just love bad music is all, like I told Alec Palao [music archivist]. "No, Joseph, it's good music. It's great music, man." To each his or her own, my brother. I like the last cut, "Lemonaide Kid." This should have led off the album. I would have ditched the country and western tune, but then that was Yoder's karma. Gary is still doing his verifiably unique thing. Dehner had the blues then, still does. Incredible. I hear Chris is way into music, always has been. No question, I would have guessed this not having seen him in ages. (But--another correction--I was in grad school at UCD at the time, not him; he was just out of high school, maybe going to City College or Delta). Gary G.? College boy. He was a writer. "HCO" etc., etc. What can I say? You got this right, I have to admit. Anyway, I hope my comment won't increase the fog on your blog, or whatever.

But while I'm at it:

"Kak-ola" was what I called the whole KAK phenomenon when Alec Palao was interviewing me for his Ace/BigBeat re-release of the album, and he decided that this would be the name of the CD compilation of KAK and Gary Yoder, whose solo work had prior limited release for some unknown (to me) reason.

Since you are using the title, Linda Damrell wrote most of the lyrics with Dehnor's help for Electric Sailor but never got credit. Didn't go over big with her, needless to say. Dehner sung on this through some kind of wacky filter. "Who is this guy...ahhh..."

In sum, I wish I knew then what I know now, but I also wish I knew now what I knew then. It was a moment, albeit without the accompanying infamy and attention that, which, come to think of it, might have ruined it. There were groups around us that were not just "breaking up" they were crashing big time. It would be nice to be rich, of course, but since we never "made it", minus the fame and fortune, KAK gets to hang out in the rarified atmosphere of the elite hip who kind of know rock and roll when they hear it and are willing to form an independent judgment. We were indies and didn't know it. Or, again, we knew it; nobody else did.

-Joseph Damrell

* * *

My response: Thanks so much, first of all, for taking the time to write such detailed recollections on my flimsy little blog, and correcting my errors. I still unapologetically--though not unconditionally--love the KAK album. It's sometimes easier to appreciate the value of an album in hindsight, outside of its era and free of fashion and positive or negative publicity (or none at all); I wasn't born yet, so this makes it relatively easy. My point is there's a certain naive quality to the album which I treasure, lyrically and conceptually, which I find rare in contemporary music--and which is why there are so many of us who now go fleeing back to this period for inspiration; with that naivete comes a willingness to try anything, regardless of whether it'll work, so one can come up with some stuff that's pretty exciting because it's not playing it safe. It's also quite clear that even though this particular band couldn't hold it together, they possessed tremendous musicianship. The talent was there, even if the formula--or whatever makes a band really click with each other--wasn't. So yeah, I still like it, and other fans of psych, garage rock, "nuggets," whatever, will still be drawn to it. I still like "Electric Sailor," too. The name stays, I hope with your blessing. Feel free to stop by again and direct us to your own musical discoveries.

POPFEST Highlights, Part 6: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart and Laminated Cat

2007-08-24T15:44:00.001-07:00

#11 The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

It figured that the first time that I had to walk out on a band, wilfully missing a portion of POPFEST, when I came back I was stepping into the middle of another band's set that I fucking loved. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, from Brooklyn, bear a passing resemblance to My Favorite, a band (recently split up) whose two albums have been permanently stuck in my CD wallet for a couple years now. Both, at least, seem to have an affinity for British New Wave, while reworking their idols into the landscape of modern pop. TPOBPAH, as I shall smoothly call them, have just released a too-brief EP, five songs with killer hooks. They already seem primed for bigger things. Here's their theme song (every band ought to have one):

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

#12 Laminated Cat

Laminated Cat proudly live up to their name, though not in any disturbing way, but by being imaginative and trippy. Their vibe is of the early 70's, when psych- and folk-rock began to touch upon the ambitions of prog rock, but they manage to keep on the sane side of overindulgence. Their songs do have a tendency to stretch their arms a bit, fully exploring the musical possibilities without completely devolving into aimless jam. Laminated Cat has a certain relaxed grandeur, ascending into outer space from the comfort of a beer-stained sofa. Listen to "Sweet Sixteen" and you might have an idea of what I mean. Also, I should say that to the band's credit, they were omnipresent at POPFEST, enthusiastically checking out all the bands--they were Athens fans, psyched to be present and playing.

Laminated Cat - Sweet Sixteen

POPFEST Highlights, Part 5: Fishboy and Gemini Cricket

2007-08-23T16:29:00.000-07:00

#9 Fishboy

Eric Michener of Fishboy looks like he ought to be the lead in Wes Anderson's new movie, but instead he's writing epic concept albums about, in his words: "how myself, the band and the ghost of Buddy Holly attempt to save Texas by going on a tour/crime spree in order to perform all 8030 of the songs I've written in my sleep since I was in the womb. It's appropriately titled: Albatross: How We Failed To Save The Lone Star State With The Power Of Rock And Roll." Judging by the extended suite he played from the album at POPFEST, it's a collection of extremely addictive pop songs with some rousing horn and epic drumming. Although I swear the title was a lot longer when he recited it live. Anyway, it's due soon on HHBTM, and I can't wait. Fishboy's extremely complex storytelling lyrics are funny as hell too. Here's a sample from the new album courtesy his website.

Parachute (Using the Ghost of Buddy Holly As A)

#10 Gemini Cricket

Those lucky enough to be in at the POPFEST preview party, or whatever you'd call it, at the Transmet on Tuesday night will have caught an extremely memorable performance by a little band called Gemini Cricket. Think early low-fi, fuzzy cassette recordings by Mates of State. Or the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. In fact, they will be releasing a low-fi, fuzzy cassette recording, on Popgun Records, plus a split 7" with the French Toasts, who also helped fill out the band during their POPFEST performance. The two singers of Gemini Cricket, Blake and Sara, are actually former camp counselors who would put together low-fi, fuzzy cassette recordings in their spare time. This all might seem a little too cute for your taste, but when they started playing--wearing antenna and fake mustaches--the joint was hopping and madly grinning. They were the first act I saw at POPFEST, and remain one of my favorites. Here's an exclusive track (and thanks to Father Cricket for providing it):

Gemini Cricket - One's We Make

POPFEST Highlights, Part 4: Yellow Fever and Smokedog

2007-08-22T16:59:00.001-07:00

#7 Yellow Fever

I was part of a carpool traveling from Wisconsin to Georgia for POPFEST, and as we all piled into the car to take the excruciatingly long trip home, preparing to sort through our newly-purchased CDs for some driving music, it was pretty amusing to discover that we all now owned Yellow Fever's EP, Cats and Rats. Hailing from Austin, the band suggests what Stereolab might have sounded like if they were a mid-60's garage band. Lead singer Jennifer Moore's voice manages to turn every lyric into a cool, confident stare-down. The band's 5-song EP, which they sell on their MySpace page, is obviously far too short to completely satisfy, but that seems oddly appropriate, since each of their songs is something of a smirking tease.

Yellow Fever - Cats and Rats

#8 Smokedog

Smokedog grows on you. Halfway through their opening night set at the Transmet, a friend said to me, "I heard one of these bands is actually just a joke...is this the one?" Well, sort of. As the third act of POPFEST, Smokedog actually set out to completely undermine the premise of the festival--never mind that the drummer is Happy Happy Birthday to Me's publicist, Jason Jones--by delivering not pop but sweaty, extremely loud guitar rock. Twee they're not. Oh, and Thom Strickland's vocals are completely, deliberately incoherent. Nevertheless, their cover of "Proud Mary" was one of POPFEST's most perverse highlights (almost as perverse as watching twee kings Tullycraft deliver shots onstage to Bunnygrunt). Here's a rare recording from this most mysterious Athens band--thanks to Jason for providing it.

Smokedog - This is the Kit

POPFEST Highlights, Part 3: Special 80's Edition

2007-08-21T17:01:00.000-07:00

[Incidentally, the number before each band is not a ranking. I realize that might be confusing. Consider the numbers more like the numbers on the backs of collector's cards. Maybe at the end of this series I'll rank the top bands of the festival, but for the moment I'm trying to highlight lesser-known acts worth checking out.]

#5 Black Kids

One of the most buzzed-about bands post-POPFEST was one that hardly anyone had heard of going in. Black Kids, from Jacksonville, managed the mean feat of getting everyone at Little Kings to dance when they were only the first act of the day, playing in the early afternoon. Lead singer Reggie Youngblood looks a little like Jimi Hendrix, but the soul of his music is firmly rooted in 80's New Wave, in particular The Cure and the Pet Shop Boys. Tullycraft immediately declared them the best band of POPFEST on their blog. They were certainly one of the most unexpectedly fucking awesome. And extra kudos to the band for handing out free CDs to everyone who wanted one...which seemed to be everyone.

Black Kids - I'm Not Going to Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You

#6 How I Became the Bomb

Is the 80's the new 60's? Jon Burr, lead singer of How I Became the Bomb, may as well be channeling Devo or New Order or whatever other 80's pop band you want to name-check. Their music is dramatically serious on topics such as fat girls talking about cardio and, um, kneeling before some guy named Zod (does this have anything to do with that movie Zardoz?); the best new song I heard at the fest, "Robo," is, yes, about a robot. But the guitar licks are furious, and on stage they're as completely alive as Black Kids, teaching all the jaded hipsters how to cut loose. It seems inevitable they'll be breaking out of obscurity soon, judging by the strength of their debut EP, Let's Go!, which you can order from the band at their website.

How I Became the Bomb - Robo

POPFEST Highlights, Part 2: Oh Sanders and Venice is Sinking

2007-08-20T17:59:00.000-07:00

#3 Oh Sanders

Gainesville's Oh Sanders, led by Stella Leung, is another one of those bands which people were still talking about days into the festival, as though trying to mentally create a bookmark--this is one we shouldn't forget. Which is always nice to see; this was a festival where people were talking more about the discoveries than the headliners (well, OK, a lot of people were talking about Daniel Johnston, but you see my point). Oh Sanders specializes in addictive tunes and observant songwriting--listen to "Pirate Ship," on their MySpace page, for as complete a portrait of narcissism as you'll ever hear, but one you might almost tune out if you start dancing to the dazzling melody. Imagine the Cranberries fronted by Chrissie Hynde. "The State of Disorder," which you can hear below (thanks Stella), is the band at its best, a strident, gorgeous march that happily sticks in your skull.

Oh Sanders - The State of Disorder

#4 Venice is Sinking

I'd heard a lot about rising Athens stars Venice is Sinking, but never really sat down with their music until I saw them live at POPFEST, and was immediately hypnotized. I found myself accidentally front row and center, and counted myself lucky when I realized what a great band it was. VIS--Daniel Lawson (vocals, guitar), Karolyn Troupe (violin), Lucas Jensen (drums), and Alex Thibadoux (keyboard)--have crafted delicate songs which land with a crashing emotional weight. They're also stunningly beautiful pieces, which (here's the real surprise) sound as good live as they do on record. That record, Sorry About the Flowers, was released last year on One Percent Press. Seek it out immediately. They're perfect ballads for disappearing cities.

Venice is Sinking - Pulaski Heights

POPFEST Highlights, Part 1: Paper Tanks & Violet Vector and the Lovely Lovelies

2007-08-19T18:28:00.000-07:00

I spent the second week of August in Athens, Georgia, attending POPFEST, sponsored by the estimable Happy Happy Birthday to Me Records. You know a music festival is worthwhile when you come home with an enormous stack of CDs, which I came to affectionately call "the brick." There were a ton of great bands I'd never heard of before, and I can say that there were only about two or three that I disliked; out of a roster of 50, that's a damn good hit ratio. I've already written up a general summary of the festival at my Optical Atlas website, but since that's an Elephant 6-oriented blog, I'd like to spend the next week or so going a little more in-depth here at Electric Sailor, taking a closer look at some of the bands who surprised me. The theme here is great new music that deserves wider exposure.

#1 Paper Tanks

This band's a bit difficult to write about, since I know nothing about them. They opened the first full day of POPFEST, playing an afternoon set at Little Kings, and kicking the festival off to a fine start with some compellingly unusual rock. Native to Athens, they're relatively new to the scene, having so far only self-released a CD-R EP called Paper Floats. It's always a good sign when you struggle to come up with a comparison for a band, though Pavement and Captain Beefheart alternately came to mind as I listened to their music. "Better Really No," with its intentionally dreary "la-la-la-la-la" backing vocals--like drunken pirates taunting over your shoulder after a lover's quarrel--is emotionally agonizing, but also chugs forward like a relentless steam-powered machine. The band definitely has a dreamy, psychedelic quality which appeals to us electric sailors--do check out the 6:39 unreleased song, "Almost From Golden Books," which the band has graciously provided below along with "Better Really No."

Paper Tanks - Better Really No
Paper Tanks - Almost From Golden Books

#2 Violet Vector and the Lovely Lovelies

At another extremity of the musical spectrum, Violet Vector and the Lovely Lovelies (you'll get used to it) calls back to one-hit-wonder 60's girl groups with just a trace of Siouxsie and the Banshees. Throughout the festival you could easily spot the Lovely Lovelies in the audience, because they were always the most smartly fashionable. Their music is just as polished, and lives up to the quiet buzz which had been building in the days prior to their performance. Hailing from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and fronted by Amanda Brooks, whose stage presence is formidable, they specialize in three-minute pop songs, albeit of a more chaste variety than their chief competitors of the moment, The Pipettes. Think Kindercore and early Dressy Bessy. Essential pop replete with handclaps, "woo-hoo-hoos," and organ!

Violet Vector and the Lovely Lovelies - Can You Dig It

Joe Butler's Lovin' Spoonful

2007-08-18T09:33:00.000-07:00

For years the Lovin' Spoonful was a hit factory, and as led by John Sebastian they turned out 60's pop classics such as "Do You Believe in Magic?", "Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?", "You Didn't Have to Be So Nice," "Summer in the City," and "Younger Generation." At heart, though, they were just a classy little jug band, as evidenced by a perusal of deeper album cuts: "Fishin' Blues," "Sportin' Life," "Jug Band Music," "Bald Headed Lena," "Darlin' Companion," and "4 Eyes" all showcase a bluesy rock 'n' roll that indicates they had no interest in being anything like the Beach Boys (with whom they were frequently compared). I have great admiration for Brian Wilson, Pet Sounds, and Smile, but I'll admit that I've always been a bigger Lovin' Spoonful fan--ever since seeing Woody Allen's What's Up, Tiger Lily?, for which the Spoonful provided the addictive soundtrack (the song "Pow!" is one of the band's most enjoyable). But these hit factories can't last. The Spoonful were undone by a slow accumulation of disasters and changes. In 1966, as the band was at the height of their popularity, Canadian guitarist Zal Yanovsky and bassist Steve Boone were busted for marijuana possession. The search was illegal, but the pair were sufficiently intimidated--Zal was threatened with deportation--and so they ratted out their supplier. The reaction among the hippie elite was swift and brutal, and the Spoonful quickly became the unhippest band on the planet, excommunicated from the burgeoning psychedelic scene. Zal, a virtuoso contributor to the band, eventually left the group. In 1968 the band released their weakest album, Everything Playing; weak, because Sebastian bowed to the pressure of his cohorts and democratically surrendered the spotlight to them, leaving an album without a consistent voice (literally) and without any particular direction or goal. "Priscilla Millionaira" is an OK rock song, written by Sebastian, but Steve Boone's vocal work is execrable--and it's inexplicably given prime placement as the second track on the album! Still, the experiment in un-Sebastianness may have been worth it to give a little more elbow room to Joe Butler, a talented songwriter with a voice that's gorgeous (if more conventional than Sebastian's). His track, "Old Folks," is one of the highlights of the album.

Expectedly, Sebastian split to pursue a very erratic solo career. His high point would come right away, with an appearance at Woodstock: the rest of his career would be greeted with wide indifference, with the exception of his hit "Welcome Back." (A shame, as some of his solo albums, recently reissued by Rhino Handmade in a limited edition 3-CD set, are pretty good.) The most widely overlooked aspect of the Lovin' Spoonful's legacy is its last album, made without Sebastian. Revelation: Revolution '69 was a hasty attempt to rejuvenate the band and reestablish its presence as fronted by Butler (the cover of the album features his name, lest there be any confusion from the consumers). The ten tracks in the album continue the spirit of his "Old Folks," and featured one single, the Nashville ode "Never Going Back." Despite the appealingly psychedelic album art (featuring Joe and an unnamed, nipple-free woman running naked beside a lion) and its title, the album is more country and less Haight-Ashbury. The pastoral feeling, which calls to mind the Byrds, relents only for "War Games," a seven-minute epic clearly inspired by "Revolution 9." Over a thumping heart beat, we hear a baby squealing, followed by the sounds and broadcasts of the Vietnam War and some ironically delivered patriotic music. It's a pretty fascinating misstep in an otherwise solid album of pop songs. And it hasn't even received a CD release, to my knowledge, despite the fact that the other Spoonful albums have in recent years been released in deluxe editions by BMG. (Two tracks did appear on Rhino's excellent 1990 best-of, Anthology.) It deserves another look. [Incidentally, my copy of the vinyl has an alternate title, Till I Run With You, printed on the actual record. Since this jives with the theme of the album artwork, one assumes the title change was done at the last second in an attempt to belatedly cash in on the hippie craze.]

The Lovin' Spoonful - Revelation: Revolution '69 (zipped file w/MP3s)

Tracks:
1. Amazing Air
2. Never Going Back
3. The Prophet
4. Only Yesterday
5. War Games
6. (Till I) Run With You
7. Jug of Wine
8. Revelation: Revolution '69
9. Me About You
10. Words

Lineup in a Faraway Town

2007-08-18T05:52:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I wish I lived elsewhere. Madison's a great town, and there's always plenty going on, but a recent trip to Athens, Georgia, for example, convinced me that I was living in the wrong place. But last Thursday I wish I'd been in Denton, Texas, at Rubber Gloves, for an evening with The Ladybug Transistor, Papercuts, and Brooke Opie. I'm sure there are plenty of other reasons to live in Denton, but this is the one that occurred to me last Thursday. (Incidentally, I'm not saying this kind of wishfulness is healthy in any way; certainly on any given Friday I'd rather be, glamorously, in New York or L.A. or London, but usually I'm stuck in Madison looking to see what movies are opening at the Sundance Theater.) The lineup at the Rubber Gloves has a kind of cosmic perfection: for a certain kind of music fan, all the stars were aligned for a perfect evening of folk-flavored pop music.

At my other blog, I've long gushed over The Ladybug Transistor as one of my all-time favorite bands, and I think I've been pretty consistent with that. Formed in the mid-90's by trumpeting virtuoso Gary Olson, their first two albums betray a strong Pavement influence, and don't distinguish themselves too strongly from other indie rock albums of the period, despite some interesting diversions into twee or 60's-styled songwriting. This latter development was emphasized more strongly on their breakthrough album, 1999's The Albemarle Sound, for which the band was fleshed out by members of Vermont's Guppyboy (later The Essex Green). On that album the band showed its hand with tracks like "The Swimmer," an ode to the Burt Lancaster film that would be a perfect fit for its soundtrack, or the instrumental "Cienfuegos," which sounds, deliberately, like an Ennio Morricone piece for a Sergio Leone movie. The album also contains two of the best pop songs you'll ever hear, "Meadowport Arch" and "Today Knows," delivered with Olson's impeccable baritone, which calls to mind a less out-of-tune Lou Reed. The band has delivered a live album, a single, three studio albums, and an EP since then, growing in critical acclaim even as the band's lineup has changed. Most recently a major creative collaborator in the band, Sasha Bell, left the band to concentrate her efforts on the equally praised Essex Green; as a result, their latest album, Can't Wait Another Day (Merge Records), might seem lacking at first to longtime fans. But it rewards with repeated listens, an album of remarkably consistent quality with a touch of acid in its lyrics that Olson embraces as an additional instrument. (The Ladybug Transistor, bitterly sarcastic? Who'd have thought.)

The Ladybug Transistor - Always on the Telephone

Papercuts, hailing from San Francisco, I first heard playing in our local Cinematheque here in Madison, where foreign, independent, and classic films are shown free of charge to we film buffs. Tom Yoshikami, the former curator of the theater (just resigned, sadly), had a habit of playing eerily appropriate music while the audience waited for the film to begin--French pop before a Godard film, for example, or A Hawk and a Hacksaw before an Hungarian film. I can't remember why he was playing the new album by the Papercuts, but I remember thinking, "How can this be an album by The Velvet Underground that I've never heard before?" I then became slowly convinced that it must be some spectacular, obscure band from the early 70's whose music was aging very well. When I learned it was a new band hailing from San Francisco, I was furious that I'd never heard of them before. (There are too many great bands out there to know them all, but it's always tiring to learn there's yet another one you'd love which has been making music behind your back.) I finally picked up the band's latest album, whose title, Can't Go Back, connects with the new Ladybugs' only out of coincidence. No, you can't go back, and this isn't retro rock, but a spellbinding, near-perfect collection of songs which could be equally appreciated by an audience in 1967 or 2007. The songs show a Donovan and Bob Dylan influence (it's easy to imagine Dylan covering "Take the 227th Exit," the only song which genuinely seems to belong outside of this decade), but there's also a feeling that the album's ravishing qualities couldn't exist without the current tidal wave of bedroom pop that's been gathering cultural momentum over the last year or two--it's an end product of a sudden, unexpected surge of good taste in popular music. I've yet to see the band live, but by all reports singer/songwriter Jason Robert Quever puts on a good show.

Papercuts - Poor and Free

If you were watching this set in Denton, the opening act would be Brooke Opie, a folk singer with an unapologetic love for many of the same influences that have set the Ladybugs and Papercuts on their current path. She's been bouncing around the Denton scene, playing in small, local acts like Archeopterix (rush judgment: good) and Mustachio (rush judgment: delightful), but has been gradually putting together a band to support her own acoustic songwriting. Her lyrics are clever without sacrificing emotion, delivered with a gorgeous voice and a natural sense of melody. The standout on her self-released CD of scratchy little demos is "Paper Skin," which opens up her sound into an atmospheric realm that, one hopes, is further explored on her next recordings. It's spooky stuff.

Brooke Opie - Paper Skin

Parade

2007-07-16T16:16:00.000-07:00

Parade is based, by necessity, out of Atlanta, but claims as its heart Athens. And sure, the small Georgia community will gladly welcome another insanely gifted young pop band into their fold (Athens people being known for their politeness). But before you pigeonhole the band into a genre, let it be known that lead singer Carrie Hodge--along with fellow Paraders Emily Martin, Scott Trinh, and Jason Chamison--really knows how to rock. Check out "That's Hott," the punkish lead track off their new EP, Answer Me, actually the fourth release from this band which only began recording in 2004. Parade kicks over the tables and smashes the dishes like nobody's business. But by the time they reach the fifth and final track of the EP, "Lunch Lady" (no relation to Adam Sandler or Chris Farley), they prove they can pull out some beautiful melodies as well.

MP3: Parade - That's Hott

Parade on MySpace
Official Parade Website

Revolution

2007-07-14T06:37:00.000-07:00

Hollywood is always late to the local zeitgeist, perhaps partly because of the significant gap between a film's greenlighting and its theatrical release. But more typically, Hollywood's just cashing in, cynically exploiting a trend or fashion as an outsider poseur. This is most egregiously apparent in the hippie exploitation films of the late 60's, many of which were released in the years after the Summer of Love, when Haight-Ashbury was old news. American International Pictures, producers of low-budget, drive-in quickies, mercilessly cashed in on any and all fads and phenomena, and Roger Corman gave them many of the most noteworthy. Of the psychedelic phase, his film The Trip is a particular favorite of mine, despite--or because of--all of its cringe-worthy pretentiousness. (On the DVD, part of MGM's "Midnight Movie Double Features" and paired with the equally amusing Psych-Out, Corman admits that he failed in his laborious , 90-minute attempt to replicate an LSD trip. But still, the movie's a blast.) One of the forgotten psych-exploitation films of this period is Revolution (1968), a musical documentary that follows a young girl named "Today Malone" who tunes in, turns on, et cetera. Unfortunately Corman is not involved. The director is one Jack O'Connell, who also directed, as the IMDB informs me, Christa: Swedish Fly Girls, about swinging stewardesses. I can't discuss the merits of Revolution, because I've never seen it, but apparently it's been turning up on cable. The soundtrack is more famous than the movie, featuring three artists: Mother Earth, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and The Steve Miller Band. (Country Joe and the Fish are in the film but not on the soundtrack, alas.) The milestone of the record, if there is any, is that it marked the recording debut of QMS, one of the major bands in San Francisco during this period, but who had managed somehow to avoid getting signed until after '67. (The Grateful Dead were also oddly neglected in their prime years, with Jefferson Airplane and Big Brother & the Holding Company stealing the media spotlight.) I really love QMS, so I sought out the vinyl soundtrack of Revolution on eBay many years ago just to own their debut. Both of their tracks are covers, but they're the highlights of the record, and on the strength of the tracks were quickly offered a contract. The Steve Miller Band needs no introduction. Mother Earth, on the other hand, never caught on outsider their SF milieu, although they had a cult following and are fondly remembered by those who lived through the period. (Note: I was born in 1976, so...)

Here's a track from each of the bands on the album, to close out--for now--our survey of psychedelic soundtracks.

Quicksilver Messenger Service - Codine
The Steve Miller Band - Superbyrd
Mother Earth - Without Love

Electric Mystical Soul Vibration

2007-07-02T16:52:00.001-07:00

Electric Mystical Soul Vibration is a synth-and-vocoder-driven band from the U.K. which combines electronica, psychedelic rock, and prog rock into hypnotic, utterly bizarre little tunes. Formed by Tony Tooke, the band's first album is the "mostly improvised" Soundscape of a Modern Myth. Given how densely layered each of the twelve tracks on the album is, "improv" is hardly the word which springs to mind when listening to it; clearly these are tracks treated with much labor and love. All of it blends together into a concept album of immense--and inscrutable--proportions, although images from Tron drift through my mind while listening to it. And while the beats hop, there's something strangely relaxing to the album: you can drift off and dream in pulsating colors to these swirling, compelling pieces. The lyrics are minimal, and in many ways the album fits into the brief fad of lyric-free instrumentalist indie bands of the late 90's, like Japancakes, though the band promises to forge new paths of its own, if the new songs on EMSV's MySpace page are any indication. Here's a track from Soundscape of a Modern Myth, now being released in limited quantities by the fledgling (and very promising) Royal Rhino Flying Records.

Electric Mystical Soul Vibration - Stereo Fish and the Mantra Ray

The Porpoise is Laughing

2007-06-22T16:30:00.000-07:00

Another psychedelic soundtrack worth hearing.

When The Monkees produced Head--the film and the LP--they were no longer the darlings of popular culture, but outcasts--or, worse, kiddie fodder--while their older fans left them for more daring pop music. "Daydream Believer," after all, was a song your mother could like, and you'd hunt in vain for hip drug references such as you could find with The Rolling Stones and The Who. But their first (and last) feature film, Head, which may have been greenlit as an obligatory afterthought, a hey-thanks-for-the-ratings, was actually a postmodern, semi-sophisticated satire directed by a director who'd shortly earn critical respect (Bob Rafelson), written by an actor who would become a superstar (Jack Nicholson), and featuring some very good psych-songs from the usual assembly line of Monkees lyricists (Carole King, Gerry Goffin, Michael Nesmith--plus Harry Nilsson and even, gulp, Peter Tork). The one true overlooked classic was "Porpoise Song," sung at the opening of the film while the Monkees suicidally dive over a bridge! While the lyrics can be a bit cookie-cutter, like many of the bands eagerly imitating Sgt. Pepper at the time, the haunting chorus--"The porpoise is laughing, goodbye, goodbye"--sticks with everyone who's seen the film. And the film is pretty interesting, if not exactly a neglected masterpiece. Rafelson and Nicholson deliberately dissect the Monkees formula, pulling it apart so that the sketches no longer make sense--punchlines without set-ups, dopey mugging without provocation, non sequiturs within non sequiturs. We see the band exploited from every angle, pushed and pulled by television crews and advertising agencies (at one point they're trapped within a shampoo commercial), and each time they escape they're pulled back into a tinier box than the one before, leading to a pretty grim finale. Unfortunately, since the Monkees were seen by 1968 as juvenelia, the intended audiences never found the film--and kids were left confused (or, who knows, enlightened).

The foil-cover soundtrack was personally compiled by Jack Nicholson as an EP's worth of songs buffed up by thick collages of dialogue and sound pulled from the film. Kind of like an early mix-tape. Peter Tork's songs are weak but fun; the standouts are, apart from "Porpoise Song," Nesmith's rousing "Circle Sky" and the gorgeous "As We Go Along," straining Mickey's vocals to their utmost. The latter formed a strong single with "Porpoise Song." Today's MP3 is the single version of "Porpoise," which has an extended ending not heard in the album version.

The Monkees - Porpoise Song (single version)

Pink Floyd: Cymbaline

2007-06-21T05:34:00.000-07:00

To continue the theme of psychedelic soundtracks: in 1969 Barbet Schroeder released More, a dream-like parable about two young lovers trapped in a dangerous heroin addiction. As with his later film, La Vallee, he tapped Pink Floyd for the dominant soundtrack. The Floyd was still in the process of metamorphosis; though it had been a few years since Syd Barrett was abruptly kicked out of the band (due to his rapidly advancing schizophrenia), Roger Waters was still testing his songwriting chops, and for a while--a while I quite like--the band was very democratic as it split songwriting duties amidst all the members. One of the highlights of the More soundtrack--and one of the few songs--is "Cymbaline," which features Dave Gilmour straining to lift his voice while the track's mixing perversely pushes him into the background. An amazing song; plus it has a Dr. Strange reference, which is always good.

The Pink Floyd - Cymbaline

Trance Mutations on the Holy Mountain

2007-06-19T18:15:00.000-07:00

In 1973 writer/director/actor/musician Alejandro Jodorowsky released a film called The Holy Mountain, which played only briefly in select film festivals and midnight screenings before it vanished for several decades. The owner of the film's North American rights (and John Lennon's short-tempered manager), Allen Klein, had promised various investors that Jodorowsky's next film would be an adaptation of The Story of O, but Jodorowsky had agreed to no such thing, expressed his disinterest, and backed away. Enraged, Klein sat upon Jodorowsky's previous two films, including the legendary El Topo, and refused to let it be screened or released on home video. The soundtrack--promised in the ending credits of the film--was not distributed to stores. All prints of the film were seized, and Jodorowsky, settling in France, turned his attention to other projects while maintaining a feud with Klein that only abated around 2004.

The film is science fiction, ostensibly, the story of a thief who, living in a corrupt dystopia, climbs a tower to steal gold from a reclusive guru. Within he is transformed by the guru into a spiritual pilgrim, who joins other pilgrims--representing different planets of the solar system--on a quest to climb a "holy mountain" and attain enlightenment. The film's tone manages to be both deadly serious and wryly satirical--I've seen it a few times, and I'm still not exactly sure how--while maintaining a steady flow of astonishing surrealist imagery and set design. Jodorowsky claims he had a low budget, but he somehow wrangles a cast of thousands into enacting his mystical parable, based on ideas and characters culled from the Tarot, and from his own endless imagination. Now that the feud between Jodorowsky and Klein is at an end, this film, along with El Topo (1970) and Fando y Lis (1968), can be purchased in a box set, The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky. Exclusive to the box are two soundtracks: El Topo (music by Jodorowsky) was previously available in the 70's from the Beatles' Apple Records; The Holy Mountain, however, appears here for the very first time. Considering the obvious craftsmanship applied to this bizarre mixture of classical music, jazz, psychedelic rock, prog rock, and Tibetan Buddhist ritual music. Since it's just a soundtrack, it can get away with such jarring juxtapositions.

The music on the CD is credited to Jodorowsky, Ronald Frangipane, and Don Cherry. Jodorowsky was an amateur, who says he composed many of the themes to El Topo almost at random: he recounts writing different notes on different letters, sending them out to his friends, and asking that they return with them; the order in which they returned the notes formed the structure of his music. The others, at least, were more professional in their approach, though they came from disparate backgrounds. Frangipane was a film composer who specialized in X-rated films. Better known was Don Cherry, a hugely gifted jazz trumpeter famous for his collaborations with saxophonist Ornette Coleman, as well as John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins. (Neneh Cherry and Eagle-Eye Cherry are his children.) Cherry's influence is felt strongly on the record, though one can surely credit Jodorowsky for the dominant use of ominous-sounding ritual Tibetan chants, which plays over the heavily symbolic opening titles and the thief's first encounter with the Master. Later in the album, "Fuck Machine" wouldn't seem out of place on a prog album, and "Pantheon Bar" even anticipates disco. Alas, the album lacks liner notes, so individual musicians are not credited.

To hear this fascinating album you have to buy the box set, which will deter those with a casual interest. In other words, if you don't want the box set, you might have to seek it out from a peer-to-peer service. Or you could take some samples below, courtesy the Electric Sailor. I expect my lawsuit from the office of Allen Klein within the week.

Trance Mutation
Isla (The Sapphic Sleep)
Rich Man in a Fishbowl
Tarot Will Teach You/Burn Your Money

For a more complete survey on the works of Jodorowsky, you can read my essay Jodorowsky Will Melt Your Brain at my film blog, Kill the Snark.

Seamonster

2007-05-20T17:26:00.000-07:00

I've been listening a lot lately to the tantalizing EP White Whale by Seamonster, a Herman Melville-obsessed singer-songwriter who goes by the moniker Adrian Seamonster, but is actually Todd Webb, a tremendously talented artist whose cartoons, comics, and children's books can be found at his website Toddbot.com. He's heavily influenced by the Elephant 6 collective (which should give you an idea of why I like his sounds so much), and at times sounds a bit like Jeff Mangum--and though I really hate it when music blogs compare bands to Neutral Milk Hotel, in this case there's good cause. He hasn't hit those heights yet, and I've only an EP to sample his talents, but he's at work on a promising concept album called The Ascension of Archibald Balloonhead, "a musical epic of love, loss, death, and destiny which spans the short life of a boy whose head mysteriously fills with helium during the bombing of his homeland, and who will bring peace to a war-torn kingdom." You see why I swoon? It's not my fault. But here's more evidence: a track from his EP, White Whale, which you can purchase directly from Mr. Seamonster himself through his band's website. It's highly recommended. I've also included an exclusive track, "Callie's Dance," written for a dancer friend's recital. A pretty instrumental from a renaissance talent.

Seamonster - We Didn't Need to Breathe
Seamonster - Callie's Dance

Apologies for the long gap in updates. I've got more to come here shortly, and yes, I use "shortly" with a hugely liberal license. Rats!

Tyrannosaurus Rex

2007-03-09T20:16:00.000-08:00

in the head of a man is a woman
in the head of woman is a man
but what wonders roam
in the head of a child

Before there was T. Rex, Marc Bolan and his bongo-playing friend, Steve Peregrine Took, played in the acoustic psych-folk band known as Tyrannosaurus Rex. Bolan had recently left John's Children (which cut the smoking track--one of the greatest rock songs of all time--"Desdemona"), and now that his curious wail of a voice was in the foreground, letting his freak hang out for the world to see. Or, at least, London. It may have been that Tyrannosaurus Rex would have vanished quickly--or at least not cut more than a single record--if it weren't for infamous DJ John Peel, who embraced the mysterious mythologies and cryptic folk-poetry of Bolan. The first two albums were a mouthful, and the lyrics just as impenetrable, but as evocative as the music and Bolan's one-of-a-kind voice which echoes off the corners of your brain. My People Were Fair and Had Sky in Their Hair...But Now They're Content to Wear Stars on Their Brows almost takes as long to say as it does to hear the entire album. But it's an astonishing debut, notable for how it transforms be-bop rock (as on "Mustang Ford") and blues ("Chateau in Virginia Waters") into something distinctly--Bolan. The lyrics are distinctly medieval, and the album, which features a dedication by John Peel, is dedicated to "Aslan and the Old Narnians." I don't know what C.S. Lewis would have made of the album, but he might have liked the Wind in the Willows-inspired prose fitted into the middle of "Frowning Atahuallpa (My Inca Love)," which closes the album, and is read by a game Peel. It's an indulgent album you'll want to indulge, and stands tall above most of the 60's psych bands, who could never be this original.

Child Star
Frowning Atahuallpa (My Inca Love)

The following year the band returned with Prophets, Seers, & Sages, the Angels of the Ages. The album opened with the band's single, "Debora," but glued to the end was the entire song played backward. Indeed, the album is a bit more experimental, as Bolan loosens his belt. The highlight of his weird excess is "Scenescof Dynasty," Scenescof being a recurring hero in Bolan's private myths--at just over four minutes, it feels like ten. Like much of this album, the sensation is of being locked with Bolan in a small room lit by candles, while he reads you a notebook of his poems and stories. If you don't run away, you're initiated into his cult--you're a true friend, engaging with his fantasy. It's difficult to conceive, forty years later, that this was released as an album. But around this time he released the notable briefer, and more raucous, "One Inch Rock," as a single, a hasty jab at commercialdom.

Deboraarobed
One Inch Rock

When I asked Elf Power's Andrew Rieger--a big T. Rex and Marc Bolan enthusiast--to recommend me a Tyrannosaurus Rex album, he immediately praised Unicorn as the best. He suggested that it had a little bit of everything, and I agree. By now, Bolan's confidence was now matched by his songwriting craft, and while his work with Tyrannosaurus Rex is much less accessible than his T. Rex rockers, Unicorn presents a truly vivid immersion in his imagination. Songs like "Chariots of Silk," "Stones for Avalon," and "She Was Born to Be My Unicorn" present gorgeous glimpses of his psychedelic idyll. And there's even another story read by John Peel, which climaxes with "Romany Soup," a chant which manages to be both playful and Satanically hypnotic. The single released around this time, "King of the Rumbling Spires," pointed a new direction for Tyrannosaurus Rex. It's driven by electric guitar, an instrument which Bolan will soon take up with all the gravity of Dylan going electric.

Stones for Avalon
The Pilgrim's Tale
King of the Rumbling Spires

The result of this new experimentation was the last of the Tyrannosaurus Rex albums, A Beard of Stars. It's my personal favorite. Steve Peregrine Took was kicked out of the band, and with him went some of his collaborations with Bolan--alas! because this meant losing the extraordinary "Once Upon the Seas of Abyssinia," which would be buried until a Bolan box set surfaced just a few years ago. But the album itself has that track's elusive quality. Beginning with the all-too-brief instrumental "Prelude," Beard of Stars is one last trip through the familiar world of dragon's ears and magical moons, but this time infused with a strangely powerful emotion. The band has lost a bit of the eerie quality of the earlier albums, and replaced it with feelings of desire, loss, and exhilaration. It climaxes with "Elemental Child," in which Bolan shows off his electric guitar with the dexterity of a Hendrix. T. Rex had to be next.

Once Upon the Seas of Abyssinia
Prelude
By the Light of the Magical Moon

KAK: The True Electric Sailors

2007-02-16T14:49:00.000-08:00

The title of this blog comes from a song by the short-lived psychedelic rock group KAK, who produced only one album (KAK, in 1968) before quickly splitting up.

MP3: KAK - Electric Sailor

The lead singer is Gary Yoder, originally of the Oxford Circle, a band of spotty-faced young 'uns hanging out around UC-Davis in Sacramento and finding themselves, based on talent alone, big fish in a small pond. More and more the band took road trips to San Francisco to play the big venues such as the Avalon and the Fillmore, opening for the likes of Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band and Them. They cut a single, "Foolish Woman," then split apart just as they were beginning to make a name for themselves. It was 1967 and the Summer of Love.

MP3: Oxford Circle - Foolish Woman

But Yoder, presumably on the strength and popularity of Oxford Circle, was offered a contract with CBS Records/Epic if he could quickly get a band together. He reunited with lead guitarist Dehner Patten of OC and recruited Joseph Damrell (of Group B) and Christopher Lockheed, and on a major label's budget, they spent the summer of 1968 in San Francisco writing the music. The album was assembled in roughly a week, received modest airplay, and disappeared into obscurity along with the stacks-full of other Bay Area bands that had been hastily signed in the aftermath of the mainstream success of Jefferson Airplane and Big Brother and the Holding Company. Either due to a lack of chemistry or a manager, the band parted ways quickly. But the album still holds up pretty well. Although the lyrics are naive and simple, the band's music has a charm, striding a line between folk and R&B. Kak bashed out some pretty decent songs that are a cut above most of the psych rip-offs of the day--perhaps because the band's intentions were genuine. Some are a bit too hastily-written, like the slightly smug opener "HCO 97658" (named after the id number for their studio session--a good indication for the amount of thought put into the track), but others stay with you, like the "Trieulogy"--a medley of three songs that form the album's centerpiece--and the ballroom-rocker "Disbelievin'."

MP3: Kak - Disbelievin'

But ultimately Kak was put together by luck, and the album released by chance. The sound holds up, and the album, which isn't too dissimilar from Moby Grape's debut, is inescapably likeable. It was rereleased in 1999 on the U.K. label Big Beat Records, as part of their "Nuggets from the Golden State" collection of reissues.

My Perfect Playlist on the Radio

2007-02-12T13:12:00.001-08:00

In case anyone's interested (I would call it "morbidly curious"), I will be interviewed briefly (really briefly!) on Madison's 92.1 FM "The Lake" tomorrow at noon CST. This will be followed by five songs chosen from my "perfect playlist" (I gave them ten, so I don't know what they picked). Since this is a classic rock station that specializes in music from the late 60's and early 70's, there will be a good sampling of psychedelic rock--I'd be surprised if they picked any of my more obscure choices. You can stream it online here.

UPDATE:
Well, that was fun. Apparently they ran around the station trying to find a copy of the Velvet Underground version of "Sweet Jane," and had to settle with a Lou Reed live version. They played:

1) Dear Prudence - The Beatles
2) Little Wing - Derek and the Dominos [Jimi Hendrix cover]
3) She's a Rainbow - The Rolling Stones
4) Hurdy Gurdy Man - Donovan
5) Sweet Jane (live) - Lou Reed

I will put an MP3 up later if I was able to successfully tape it.

King of Prussia

2007-02-11T07:41:00.000-08:00

I can't resist Save the Scene, the debut album from King of Prussia. It's a small album, self-released while the band shops for a label, but their sound is fully-formed and big, and the album is at least as good as the new Shins--no, better. Part of the reason they've emerged with such a big, sophisticated sound is that, well, they're from Athens, Georgia, the best music scene in America right now to polish your indie-pop skills--but more because the members have already paid their dues in other outfits impressive in their own right: most of the guys migrated from the now-defunct Beijing, and Peter Alvanos of Fabulous Bird joins them. They also joined members of Athens' preeminent Elephant 6 collective to form "An Observatory" at a recent R.E.M. tribute concert. Their pop sound is a warm embrace, but the lyrics are laced with acid wit and clean storytelling, as on the first track of the album, "Spain in the Summertime," which you can download below. Even wittier: the lyrics to the entire album are printed in miniature on the CD, and if you order directly from the band--as you must, at the moment--they'll give you a magnifying glass to read them. The lyrics are so good you'll humiliate yourself to use it. But spin this album for friends and give them all the help you can--this underground release deserves a vast and bright spotlight.

King of Prussia - Spain in the Summertime

Links:
King of Prussia on Myspace (with order info)
Beijing
Fabulous Bird
MP3: An Observatory - These Days (live)

Abernethy

2007-02-09T05:04:00.000-08:00

Vancouver band Abernethy has just released its new album College Grove on Spinning Gold Records, and the opening track, "Astronaut," is something I've been sort of obsessed with these last couple of weeks. Lead singer/songwriter Joseph Abernethy has a gorgeous voice, which the album showcases across 11 tracks. But it's "Astronaut" I play over and over, probably because it's the poppiest song on the record, led by Stephen Toon's classy piano, rising and falling, while Abernethy's voice soars above it. Fine work.

Abernethy - Astronaut

Links:
Abernethy on MySpace
Spinning Gold Records

The Shot Heard 'Round the World

2007-02-08T19:11:00.000-08:00

The Brooklyn-based folk-rock band The Shot Heard 'Round the World has assembled its debut album, and it's the sort of modest pleasure that you refuse to lavish superlatives upon, until a week later you realize you've already listened to it twenty times and that has to mean something good. So put away that snobbery toward the modest: this is a wonderful album. Ten Songs for Town and Country reminds one of the early recordings of that other Brooklyn folk band you love (or should), The Essex Green, mainly for its devotion to the countryside, rivers, mountains, and prairie, while dabbling in the aural experimentation and quick changes in tempo and style that indicate a restlessness more akin to Arthur Lee--by way of Belle and Sebastian, as you won't find much fury or cynicism here. Recorded in "a cabin in rural Vermont," this is a pretty low-fi album, and at times relaxes back into simple, lovely piano instrumentals, but it's packed with delirious melodies that circle like leaves kicked up by a strong wind. Songwriters J. Alexander Farrill and Timothy Miles Bean have assembled some sublime mood pieces--eleven of them actually. "Casseopeia" twinkles like the constellation it invokes in its chorus, but with the simple, eloquent imagery of faces lit by lightning bugs. "Darker, Darker," with its mournful violin, strikes the only downcast note in an otherwise openly joyful album--but it's strident and sophisticated. My particular favorite of the lot is "Dead on Night," which pairs the quivering vocals with a background of soft, squealing feedback before bursting into an open sky of trombone and clarinet. It's not an album that's meant to change the world, but describes its own, and with the sort of detail and beauty that speaks to a real talent in the making. It's out on the fledgling Mountain Landis label.

The Shot Heard 'Round the World - Dead on Night

Links:
The Shot Heard 'Round the World on MySpace
The Shot Heard 'Round the World Official Site

The Psychedelic Alice

2007-02-08T16:54:00.000-08:00

It would be difficult to deny that Lewis Carroll's "Alice" children's books--Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass--had a tremendous impact upon psychedelic music and pop culture in the mid-to-late 60's. The touchstone, of course, is Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit," which drew out some of the trippiest moments of Carroll's books and described, explicitly, how they could be a "Just Say Yes" screed. Alice became an icon of the 60's generation, eating mushrooms which made her grow taller (or higher) and innocently swallowing the unknown contents of bottles labelled only "Drink Me." "The Annotated Alice," which picked apart the meaning of Carroll's sentences and characters, became a bestseller. The BBC, in 1966, aired an "Alice in Wonderland" featuring Peter Cook, Michael Redgrave, Peter Sellers, John Gielgud, Alan Bennett, and Leo McKern, directed by Jonathan Miller, with a lovely sitar score by Ravi Shankar; it played up the disorienting and disturbing aspects of the source material. The famous Walt Disney version was rereleased in theaters with a promotional poster that emulated the psychedelic designs of the Haight-Ashbury concert posters. John Lennon was a professed Carroll fan--his own prose writings emulated the wordplay of his idol--and his ultimate tribute was, perhaps, "I am the Walrus," named after Carroll's "Walrus and the Carpenter" passage. Obscure psychedelic and garage bands, eager to sneak in any kind of a wink-wink reference to the drug culture to add an aura of hip legitimacy to their songwriting, inevitably tackled "Alice in Wonderland" subject matter--often crassly, but sometimes to impressive effect, as with the songs of Frumious Bandersnatch and Boeing Duveen & the Beautiful Soup, both of whom even named themselves after Carrollian verse.

Today I'm providing a zipped compilation called "The Psychedelic Alice." At 25 tracks and almost 80 minutes, it's a general survey I've put together of psychedelic artists tackling the world of Alice, to varying degrees of success. Some of the bands and songs are very well known--"I am the Walrus" and "White Rabbit" are naturally included--but many are very obscure, from Central Nervous System's psych-rock to the soul stylings of the King George Discovery. The tracks are arranged roughly to follow the events of the books, or as much as can be expected. Some of the tracks may not, in fact, be inspired by Lewis Carroll--"Walking in the Queen's Garden," by the post-Van Morrison Them, may have nothing to do with the Queen of Hearts, for example--but they fit pretty well anyway, and fill in gaps in our narrative.

One thing to keep an ear open for is how the character of Alice is treated in the lyrics of each song; at times she's a psychedelic heroine, or a young innocent, or even a buzzkill, depending on what the musicians were trying to accomplish with their song. Many of the songs are pretty vapid attempts to hook into the trend, and don't mean much at all. A couple of other things to note: "A Sitting on a Gate" is taken from an Alice in Wonderland concept album from the late 60's, which blended spoken verse with music. "Beautiful Soop (excerpt)" is taken from a much longer recording by Pauline Oliveros, and isn't rock or pop at all, but an avant-garde, electronic composition. The final track is an excerpt from Ravi Shankar's score to the aforementioned BBC special, which ends the compilation on a pretty nice note, I think. I had leftovers, and could compile a volume 2 with some more contributions--go ahead and email me an MP3 if you have an Alice rarity in your collection. The only guideline is that it must be from the 60's or early 70's--the Alice heyday!

The Psychedelic Alice - zipped file

Track Listing:
1. Alice is a Long Time Gone (The Incredible String Band)
2. White Rabbit (Jefferson Airplane)
3. Sea of Tears (Dotti Holmberg)
4. Alice in Wonderland (Central Nervous System)
5. Cheshire (Frumious Bandersnatch)
6. The Mad Hatter's Song (The Incredible String Band)
7. Alice in Wonderland (The Dave Heenan Set)
8. Walking in the Queen's Garden (Them)
9. Beautiful Soop [excerpt] (Pauline Oliveros)
10. Fairytales (The Lemon Drops)
11. Alice from Wonderland (The King George Discovery)
12. Through the Looking Glass (The Monkees)
13. Through the Looking Glass (The Mike Stuart Span)
14. Jabberwock (Boeing Duveen and the Beautiful Soup)
15. Talking to the Flowers (The Everly Brothers)
16. Who Planted Thorns in Miss Alice's Garden? (Tom Northcott)
17. Alice Designs (The Sugarbeats)
18. Tweedle Dee (Peter Doyle)
19. I Am the Walrus (The Beatles)
20. The Lion and the Unicorn (Skip Bifferty)
21. A Sitting On a Gate (Peter Howell)
22. Alice in Wonderland (Berkeley Kites)
23. Looking Glass Alice (The Bunch)
24. Which Dreamed It (Boeing Duveen and the Beautiful Soup)
25. Alice in Wonderland [End Titles] (Ravi Shankar)

Wonderwall

2007-02-04T07:58:00.001-08:00

I had wanted to see Wonderwall pretty much since becoming a Beatles fan (in high school), since the soundtrack counts as one of the very first George Harrison solo albums, only preceded by an Apple release of experimental mellotron noodlings. Since those days of fandom, my obsession with the shortly-lived psychedelic heydey of 1966-1968 had placed the film even higher on my must-see list, but a certain wary reservation let me turn down the offer, from Rhino's exclusive Handmade line of limited-edition releases, to purchase the film on DVD with assorted collectibles. After all, this had every likelihood to be a head film of the pretentious variety (is there any other kind?).

There are unintentional head films (i.e. 2001: A Space Odyssey), and then films in which the filmmakers actually desired the audience to drop acid to enhance the viewing experience (i.e. El Topo). The best head film, aside from Kubrick's, is George Dunning's Yellow Submarine. The Beatles distanced themselves from the animated film, not even supplying their own voices, because they assumed it would be on par with the Beatles cartoon show--aimed squarely at children--and only agreed to the project because it would help complete their contract to make a certain number of films. But the finished result is at least on par with A Hard Day's Night, and far more artistically successful than the film directed by the Beatles (or at least Paul McCartney), Magical Mystery Tour, and Let it Be, which completed their film contract with a depressing fizzle. Yellow Submarine was a kaleidoscopic fantasy inspired by Beatles lyrics but calling to mind Alice in Wonderland and The Phantom Tollbooth, and perfectly in tune with the childlike surrealism of John Lennon. Plus, since the filmmakers were able to hand-pick Beatles tunes (apart from the handful of "new" throwaways handed them by the band), the soundtrack, finally released in its entirety in the late 90's, is stunning, highlighted by a rendering of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" that represents the height of artfully used rotoscoped animation--after the sequence there was applause in the theater, at a revival showing in Seattle. I would imagine that if you were going to drop acid while watching a film, Yellow Submarine would provide a very pleasant trip.

McCartney and Lennon both had interests in avant-garde film. McCartney, while a Beatle, also provided a score for a now-obscure British film; but it must have been unexpected when Harrison put a film score under his belt. In retrospect, for a Beatle who would later score eclectic projects such as the Madonna/Sean Penn vehicle Shanghai Surprise and the IMAX film Everest, and co-found Handmade Films for the benefit of Monty Python’s Life of Brian, his first choice doesn’t seem so unusual after all.

Wonderwall is of the “head film” genre, but at the same time it’s very, very British in its sensibility; it’s one of the strangest head films you’ll see. It stars not a hippie hero but the aged Jack MacGowran, hired because of his role as Professor Abronsius in Roman Polanski’s Dance of the Vampires (so IMDB tells me now, but while I was watching Wonderwall I was constantly reminded of the doddering vampire-hunting professor). Playing Professor Collins, he spends his day peering through a microscope, and by night peering through the hole in the wall of his apartment, spying upon the neighbor girl, a hippie model. The discovery of the hole is given great import. The professor, living amidst piles of papers and shelves of books, tosses something angrily at the wall because of the racket—Harrison’s sitar music—playing loudly next door. His butterfly collection drops to the floor, shattering glass, and in the dark he can see a cross of light beaming from the tiny hole (a lovely use of lens filter). Through it, he sees the beautiful young woman reclining in red light while listening to the sitar play. As he looks back at his butterfly collection, the butterflies, now animated (in every sense of the term), flutter before his eyes and fly into the ether. The next time he spies through the hole, the girl and her friends are presumably in a fashion shoot; she’s skiing in falling snow, bizarre poses are struck, all to Harrison’s mixture of traditional Indian music and rock ‘n’ roll. And they are in a fashion shoot. After the animated-butterflies sequence, all scenes in the film have a rational explanation. No surprise a scientist is the main character—this is scientific, mathematic surrealism, which only lets the butterfly scene slip by because someone forgot to carry the one. Nevertheless, there is a long, somewhat irritating dream sequence midway through the film, which features backwards-playing notes as the professor envisions himself battling the girl’s rakish boyfriend, who’s wearing a superhero suit with “LSD” on the chest. One of the film’s most striking images, and its best stab at surrealism tempered by reality, depicts the professor madly digging peepholes between the bricks of the wall, so the multicolored lights of the psychedelic room on the other side shine through like a Christmas tree. Less satisfyingly, the following scene has our voyeur using every one of the holes to spy on his neighbor making love, the camera undercranked.

That scene, like the rest of the film, has a thin line to walk. It has to be charming, funny, and fascinating and not, well, creepy and disturbing. It almost works—but, unsurprisingly, does not. This is a film about a sheltered, lonely elderly man who becomes aroused—I’m sorry, “turned on”—to the carefree world of the younger generation, primarily through the act of obsessively spying. How could that work? And could this film have been made in any other year than 1968? I Love You, Alice B. Toklas, the Peter Sellers comedy, attempted something similar, and the results were either more or less successful, depending on whether you’d rather be watching this story unfold as a broad comedy (as Toklas did) or as a semi-serious fable (as Wonderwall is). Either way, it’s hard to take it too seriously in the twenty-first century. Sure, there’s some ostensible human interest when the girl’s boyfriend occasionally visits the professor (they almost become friends), or when the professor rescues the girl from a suicide attempt. These moments seem out of place in a “head film.” In fact, the film seems to be well on its way to a quaint, minor-key ending with the professor returning to his lab and his microscope, but as he looks through his favorite peephole, he sees a fantastic vision of his neighbor drifting away from him and becoming one with the cosmos. Frankly, the film could have used more of that sort of naïveté, but as it stands, Wonderwall tries to please both the trippers and the middle-brows.

The film would have fallen completely into irrelevance if not for the producers’ smart decision to hire George Harrison for the score, and his soundtrack album, which stayed in print when the film did not, is a feast of mind-expanding explorations anchored by the dreamy sitar. So much of what should be intolerable in this film is elevated by his accompaniment. The opening title sequence is a particularly remarkable blend of Harrison music with otherworldly visuals (the professor’s microscope slides). If any of this film sounds interesting to you, I’d recommend seeking it out, despite its flaws. But this is for psychedelic historians only.