BLOGGER TEMPLATES AND TWITTER BACKGROUNDS

Saturday 7 May 2011

*** Kennelmus - Folkestone Prism (Us Psych 1972) Fabulously Bizarre Gem! ***


I was dubious about the claims that Folkstone Prism was an album of desert surf music from 1971, but damned if that's not what it is. Oh, it's psychedelic and swirly and sometimes backwards. but it has great tremolo guitar, some fuzz, interesting drums, and most importantly, is a melodic work. Surely adventurous and well off the beaten path, but surely worth checking out. -Phil Dirt [Reverb Central]

This way-obscure Phoenix band released a late-period psychedelic album in 1971 that, by the standards of self-released LPs of the time, was several layers above the usual such offering. Largely (although not wholly) instrumental, their Folkstone Prism was an authentically oddball, occasionally goofy, and sometimes inspired blend of surf music, spaced-out psychedelia, and silly pop. The exotic dabs of melodica, zither, and special effects by multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Ken Walker added a cloud of eeriness; "I Don't Know" has keyboards straight off the Chantays' surf classic "Pipeline, " "Goodbye Pamela Ann" scorching psychedelic guitar that sounds like a mating of the Electric Prunes and Haight-Ashbury, and "Mother of My Children" vocals that sound like a Lee Hazlewood parody. Kennelmus, indeed, can be seen as spiritual forefathers of sorts to several post-punk Arizona bands--Black Sun Ensemble, Friends of Dean Martinez, and Scenic--that have made instrumental rock that can function as a quasi-psychedelic desert movie soundtrack. Of course, it's doubtful that those bands, or many others, were aware of Kennelmus, since their album was released in a pressing of 1000 in 1971, and not even well known among collectors. Kennelmus evolved from the more standard garage band the Shi-Reeves, who played British Invasion covers and surf music. Ken Walker changed the name to Kennelmus in 1969 (Kennelmus being his full first name), and with singer/ guitarist Bob Narloch began recording Folkstone Prism in late 1970, with the help of bassist Tom Gilmore and drummer Mike Shipp. The record was very much the brainchild of Walker, who wrote all but one of the songs. Three of the four band members worked at a pressing plant, making them one of the few, if not the only, group of their sort to literally help press their own recordings. An anomaly of its time (or any other), Folkstone Prism made little impact, and the band broke up around the mid-1970s, although the album was reissued on CD by Sundazed in 1999. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide Personally I think record will make a very unique addition to your collection.So by all means give this a listen,and prepare to trip out....


* Indicates Instrumental

01.I DON'T KNOW *
02.PATTI'S DREAM*
03.DANCING DORIS *
04.GOODBYE PAMELA ANN *
05.MONOLOGUE
06.BLACK SUNRISE *
07.THINK FOR YOURSELF
08.THE BUG, THE GOAT,AND THE HEARSE *
09.SHAPES OF SLEEP
10.CLOUD OF LEAD *
11.MOTHER OF MY CHILDREN
12.1001 TWICE *
13.SYLVAN SHORES
14.BULLETIN !!!
15.THE RAVEN

:D

Wednesday 4 May 2011

***The Strawberry Alarm Clock - Incense & Peppermints (us 1967) - Essential Psych band! ***


Strawberry Alarm Clock occupies a peculiar niche in the history of 60's rock. Their name is as well known to anyone who lived through the late-'60s psychedelic era as that of almost any group one would care to mention, mostly out of its sheer, silly trippiness as a name and their one major hit, "Incense and Peppermints," which today is virtually the tonal equivalent of a Summer of Love flashback. But there was a real group there, with members who had played for a long time on the Southern California band scene, who were proficient on their instruments and who sang well and generated four whole LPs of which at least three were worth hearing more than once. The band's origins go back to Glendale, CA, in the mid-'60s, and a group then known as the Sixpence. It was 1965 and all things British were still a selling point, so the name made as much sense as anything else. Their lineup was formed from the members of various other bands coming together, and included Lee Freeman on vocals, guitar, and harmonica, Ed King on guitar, Gary Lovetro on bass, Gene Gunnels on drums, Mike Luciano on tambourine, and Steve Rabe on lead guitar. They mostly did covers of then-popular hits and developed a considerable following in Glendale and also in Santa Barbara, playing there so often that a lot of histories have them coming out of Santa Barbara. They were like a lot of hot local bands, good enough to pull people to their shows and always seemingly poised to make the jump to the next level. They did record, starting with an early single, "You're the One," on the Impact label and a trio of 45s that included "Hay Joe" [sic] and covers of the Who song "I Can't Explain" and the rock & roll standard "Fortune Teller" in 1966, for the tiny All-American label; with "Fortune Teller" flipped to the A-side, their third All-American single was picked up by Dot Records for national distribution. Their membership changed late that year as well, with Rabe departing and Mark Weitz joining on keyboards and vocals, sharing the lead singing chores with Freeman. They continued issuing singles on All-American into 1967, changing their name along the way to Thee Sixpence at one point. In the spring of 1967, there was a flurry of activity going on surrounding the band. They were working out a new single, the A-side of which was to be a sneering punkish piece called "The Birdman of Alkatrash," written by Weitz. They needed a B-side, and an instrumental titled "Incense and Peppermints" --also put together by Weitz with help from guitarist Ed King --was duly recorded, and producer Frank Slay (who also owned a publishing company) ended up sending a tape of the track to a friend, songwriter John Carter, who had scored a modest but important hit with a song called "That Acapulco Gold," for a group called the Rainy Daze, earlier that year. He delivered the words to "Incense and Peppermints," which ended up --under a contract he had with Slay --credited to him and his songwriting partner, Tim Gilbert. By this time, the band had developed enough self-confidence that they felt offended by Slay's maneuver, and neither Weitz nor Freeman was willing to throw themselves into the lyric the way they should have, especially as Carter came down to the session to oversee the recording of his lyrics. It was his choice, backed by Slay, of Greg Munford, a 16-year-old friend of the group who happened to be hanging out at the session. Such was the level of confusion that although Slay promised to put Weitz and King on the song as composers, when the producer/publisher filed the copyright registration, Carter and Gilbert were the only composers listed, although Weitz and King are credited as arrangers --and nobody seemed overly concerned by the fact that Munford wasn't actually in the band. This was "just" a B-side, after all, that would be forgotten as soon as "The Birdman of Alkatrash" started to get airplay, if it ever did. The single was issued on All-American, with "Incense and Peppermints" as the B-side, and a few copies seem to have gotten out credited to the Sixpence. But the group and their management became concerned over the fact that there were other, similarly named (if differently spelled) bands out there, and began thinking that a new name was called for. So the story goes, the group members were sitting around Weitz's house, trying to come up with a name, and had settled on "Strawberry," appropriated from a recent hit Beatles song. They were trying to figure out what went with "strawberry" and someone noticed a piece of household equipment that was making some noise as they sat there. "Strawberry Alarm Clock" scanned well and sounded playful enough in the tenor of the times, and the new name was in place by the middle of the summer. And at that point, with the new name affixed to the All-American 45, the single started to take on a life of its own --literally. The All-American single actually began getting airplay, but it was the B-side, "Incense and Peppermints," that DJs were choosing and airing. Enter Uni Records, a newly established imprint of American Decca and its parent company, MCA, who picked it up for national distribution. For a record now credited to Strawberry Alarm Clock, Uni Records was a perfect conduit, with its brightly colored label design, not that this was real factor in what people heard --it just completed the picture. The song swept across the airwaves gradually, fueling a sales wave that built into a number one chart placement over the next three months, in November of 1967. By that time, the group had been prevailed upon to record an album around the single, even though Munford, who'd sung on the hit, wasn't in the group. The album involved a few changes in the lineup, partly growing out of the fact that the existing membership didn't have enough songs to fill an LP. They brought in 18-year-old George Bunnell, a Massachussets-born musician and songwriter who'd previously played in the Something Else and as a member of Chapter Four and the Waterfyrd Traene, and his collaborator, Ohio-born Steve Bartek, who was still in high school at the time. They brought with them a brace of songs, and Bunnell --who also played bass --was having trouble getting the group's bassist, Gary Lovetro, to handle the bass parts correctly, and King finally suggested that Bunnell play bass on those songs, while Bartek ended up playing flute on the album. Bunnell was so effective that all agreed that he should become a member, and he agreed after initial hesitation over abandoning his current group. Even Bartek, who was only 16, was offered a chance to join, in recognition of his contribution to the album, but because of his age he needed his parents' permission, which wasn't forthcoming. Thus, Strawberry Alarm Clock became extremely unusual (if not unique) as a band with two bass players. Additionally, drummer Gene Gunnels, who'd been with the Sixpence since 1965, then left and then returned, and who had played on "Incense and Peppermints," was gone by the time the group got around to doing the album. In his place was Randy Seol, who'd been in the band since 1966 and sang as well as played drums. And just to make the membership situation more complicated, Seol sang on "Incense and Peppermints," and Gunnels would be back to replace him on drums a couple of years later. The Incense and Peppermints LP ended up coming out astonishingly strong, especially considering the haste with which the album was recorded, and the evolving membership during the recording process. Its number 11 chart placement (the only time one of their LPs actually charted) only affirmed the seemingly charmed nature of the group's work during the last eight months of 1967. This was partly a result of the way that the album was approached --it was done in a hurry, on the fly, but with a rather bold creative impulse at work within that framework. In addition to the flute provided by Bartek (who also evidently played a few other instruments on the sessions), Wietz, Bunnell, King, and Seol all had credits on the album for "special effects," referring to unusual instruments (or unusual sounds from their usual instruments) that they played. In an interview with Gary James, Bunnell recalled employing several different basses as well as an array of exotic instruments in the studio, including the Vox Mando guitar, which resembled a cut-down 12-string (the instrument was immortalized by Brian Jones in a photo but was seldom actually heard on record). In all, the album proved to be one of the more delightful artifacts of the psychedelic era, a strangely compelling mix of psychedelia, sunshine pop, garage rock, and California harmony. If the group wasn't in the front rank of rock acts, they'd certainly earned the entrée to run with them. Strawberry Alarm Clock toured nationally for the second half of 1967 and much of 1968 off the success of "Incense and Peppermints," sharing billing at various times with the likes of Country Joe & the Fish, Jimi Hendrix, and the Who; while Bunnell found the latter to be a highlight, for King it was touring with the Beach Boys and Buffalo Springfield that became the high point of his career. They also underwent some more changes. Gary Lovetro, the band's original bassist, a founding member of the group, took the money and ran --for a 25,000 dollar buyout, he relinquished his position to Bunnell and left the music business. The five-man version of the band cut a follow-up single, "Tomorrow," a collaboration between Weitz and King that reached number 23 nationally in early 1968. The song had lots of great hooks, vocal and instrumental, with a killer feedback-soaked guitar break by King and lyrics that belonged to Weitz this time; along with the rest of the album, it also benefited from the presence of vocal coach Howard Davis, who was brought in to help the members push the harmony singing displayed on Incense and Peppermints to new levels of sophistication. On the single they sounded a bit like the Association crossed with the Who or the Creation (except that, unlike the Association, the Alarm Clock played on their own records). Despite the success of "Tomorrow," the album Wake Up...It's Tomorrow never sold as well as it should have, mostly because Uni Records was late in getting it out, a month after "Tomorrow" had started its run up the charts. The public's attention span was very limited, and 30 days was an eternity in a marketplace crowded with lots of new (and some good) music; it's the difference between individual record stores ordering one or two copies of an LP, versus five or six, and displaying them prominently or at length, versus putting them in the browsers for people to find, and listeners still having the song in mind when they find the album. It ended up selling nowhere near the quarter-of-a-million copies of the first LP, and in many ways marked the sudden downward turn in the band's fortunes. The whole image of the group as it's been passed down might have been different if Wake Up...It's Tomorrow had sold better. "Incense and Peppermints," for all of its success, was a piece of product produced by many hands, as was the album that followed, while Wake Up...It's Tomorrow was the creation of a cohesive working band, and sounded it, even with the presence of Howard Davis working to make their singing more sophisticated. There were some exotic instruments, to be sure, and some uncredited contributions by the members --in an interview with Gary James, King said that he played a lot of the bass parts on that record --but it was much more an expression of the five members, complicated by the sometimes very direct (and sometimes interfering) influence of the record label, which was always looking for the most accessible, commercial sound, and also by some disagreements. Weitz revealed in an interview with Richie Unterberger that he and several of the others had strong reservations about Seol's and Bunnell's compositions, most especially "Nightmare of Percussion" and "Curse of the Witches." Still, the album did fit together in its odd way, and was more of a musicians' record than a producer's record --and had more people heard it, they might've been remembered in subsequent years as a band and not just as an AM radio phenomenon with a funny name. It was while working on the album that the group also got pegged for screen immortality, when they were invited to appear in and perform a song in Richard Rush's 1968 drama Psych-Out, set in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury hippie mecca and starring Susan Strasberg, Jack Nicholson, Dean Stockwell, and Bruce Dern. Produced by Dick Clark, even that opportunity was an outgrowth of the success of "Incense and Peppermints" --after appearing on Clark's program to mime to their hit, the group got the offer of the movie, which gave King and Freeman a fresh songwriting opportunity, in the form of "Pretty Song from Psych-Out." According to Weitz in an interview with Unterberger, King also served as a technical consultant on the movie when it came to showing Nicholson enough about how to hold and finger a guitar so that he looked as though he were really playing. The song made for one of the better moments on an otherwise already very strong album, and the movie helped shore up the group's seriousness (and their legacy) as an actual band, putting them alongside the Seeds and Boenzee Cryqye.


Their record sales never rebounded, however, even with whatever help Psych-Out gave.
By late 1968, they were still getting bookings based on "Incense and Peppermints" and "Tomorrow," but not what they had been. The record label, which had allowed the members some autonomy on the prior two albums with regard to songwriting and the overall approach to recording, decided to exercise a lot more control for the third album, The World in a Sea Shell. With softer harmony singing and orchestral accompaniments --including brass flourishes --and four songs from outside writers, this was where the Alarm Clock seemed to "sell out" as far as its fans were concerned. Making matters worse was the fact that two of the four outside songs were written by John Carter and Tim Gilbert, the two composers whose names had somehow ended up on "Incense and Peppermints" despite their not having written a note of music (and Gilbert not having written a comma); and this was becoming a sore point as the members, catching their breath after a year's furious activity, realized what two of them had lost --suddenly, but understandably, the group became more than a little distrustful of the management and the producer who'd signed away at least 50,000 dollars in royalties for two of its members. The album was even more irksome in its final form, the first side dominated by the outside songs, two of which were written by Carole King and Toni Stern and perfectly fine as songs --but not really what the group was about; the whole first side sounded like the work of some pop outfit trying to sound psychedelic, and what there was of the Alarm Clock's real sound didn't get heard until the second side. By the time the smoke cleared, Randy Seol and George Bunnell --who weren't represented on the album at all as songwriters --had opted out, and the Alarm Clock's position with its fans was even more precarious, especially amid the maneuvering that followed. The group dismissed their longtime manager, Bill Holmes, and in retaliation Holmes organized a "new" Strawberry Alarm Clock around Seol and Bunnell, booking a tour for them and even initially ignoring a restraining order obtained by Weitz, King, and company. By the time the situation was sorted out legally, promoters were afraid to book anyone claiming to be Strawberry Alarm Clock. The new lineup for the real band included ex-Nightcrawlers guitarist/singer Jimmy Pitman, with King shifting over on an even more permanent basis to playing bass, and, returning to his former spot, drummer Gene Gunnels, replacing interim drummer Marty Katin. The new lineup was almost a new group, in the sense that Pitman's vocals and guitar --which was heavily blues-inflected, and just plain heavy --completely altered their sound, and his songs were harder, louder blues-rock numbers than anything the group had ever before attempted to record or perform. This lineup went into the studio one last time on Uni's dime, the label hoping to salvage something from the chaos surrounding the band, and this time were allowed to produce themselves, with Weitz and King stepping up to that chore. And the results weren't bad --Good Morning Starshine, as it was titled, might not have sounded too much like the Alarm Clock of "Incense and Peppermints" or even "Tomorrow," except on a couple of cuts such as "Small Package" and "Dear Joy," but it was an honest statement of who they were, and even on somewhat disjointed pieces like "Off Ramp Road Tramp," they generated a powerful sound; more to the point, if they weren't exactly making sounds that would endure for the ages, they sounded engaged and involved, which was more than one could say about most of the previous LP. The only exception was the title track, a pop standard from the musical Hair that got to number 87 before it was eclipsed by Oliver's more accessible pop-focused version. It all proved an exercise in futility as the single failed and the group was now more hamstrung than ever, thanks to their ex-manager's chicanery. With record sales going through the floor and bookings difficult to get, there was no reason for the members to stay together, especially amid the continuing disputes and lawsuits over money. Pitman had gone by the end of 1969, to be replaced by vocalist Paul Marshall while King switched back to lead guitar, and Weitz left soon after, disillusioned with the band and the music business. A quartet version of the band carried on, picking up what bookings could be generated by the name until 1971, led by King. In a classic example of one door closing and another opening in life, it was a little later that he was invited to join Lynyrd Skynyrd, an up-and-coming Southern rock band that had opened for the Alarm Clock in its final phase, and whose lead singer, Ronnie Van Zant, he'd become friendly with. It was with Skynyrd on their classic first three LPs and the tours around them that he would finally get the reward to which his success entitled him.


01. The world's on fire
02. Birds in my tree
03. Lose to live
04. Strawberries mean love
05. Rainy day mushroom pillow
06. Paxton's back street carnival
07. Hummin' happy
08. Pass time with SAC
09. Incense and peppermints
10. Unwind with the clock
11. Birdman of Alkatrash

here

Tuesday 3 May 2011

The Misunderstood - I, Unseen & I can Take You to the Sun





Does this persuade you to listen to the album now?? Come on, nobody has yet and it makes me so sad!


"Before the Dream Faded"

***REPOST: Psychelatte's Glass Freakout feat. Philip Glass works (Amended - extra folder enclosed!!)***










So..here is my offering of a Philip Glass compilation for the unitiated. I've included stuff that shows his wacky style as well as his gentler side. But mostly it's pretty hectic, rushing, vibrant stuff.
I havent included anything overtly operatic or anything too long and repetitive, so as not to alienate potential converts!
There's quite a lot of singing, but its mostly la la la's and pah pah pahs!! I think the pieces I've chosen are pretty accessible and not too challenging, yet still will hopefully take you to heady heights of supreme ecstasy and awe..(hmmm...!) Its not exhaustive by any means, but reasonably definitive, i believe.

Its just over 1 and a half hours. Hope you Enjoy!

**** UPDATE: I was peed off that my audio extraction from
"Geometry of Circles" played ok on my phone, but not on my mp3 player after i had already uploaded the files. I couldn't bear to miss it off, so everything is all re-done.
For those who want the audio, i have uploaded an extra folder with it contained therein, which also includes the above 2 videos..(obviously previous downloaders need only download the first folder).

Folder 1:

Geometry of Circles mp3 audio (should be ok now!!)
Geometry of Circles mp4 video
Channels & Winds with Japanese Hiroshima anime video, mp4
Channels & Winds, " " " " flv



Folder 2:

01b Act 1 A Gentleman's Honor (The Photographer)

02 Freezing (Songs From Liquid Days)

03 Channels & Winds (Passages - with Ravi Shankar)*

04 Act II Tagore Scene I Confrontation & Rescue (Satyagraha)

05 Face to Razor (The Candyman)*

06 Screens of Memory (1000 Airplanes on the Roof)

07 Pruit Igoe (Koyaanisqatsi)*

08 Video Dream (Powaqqatsi)*

09 Knee 3 (Einstein on the Beach)*

10 Dance VII (Glassworks)

11 The Encounter (1000 Airplanes on the Roof)

12 New Cities in Ancient Lands ( Powaqqatsi)*

13 Cocktail Party (Persephone - Orchestral Music - Archive II)

14 Act III Scene II Attack & Fall (Akhnaten)

15 Open the Kingdom (Songs from Liquid Days)

16 Dance IX (Glassworks)


*= album on this blog!

Part 1
Part 2

Sunday 1 May 2011

The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band - A Child's Guide to Good & Evil


With their soaring psychedelia, achingly pure folk-rock and Zappa/Beefheart strangeness, these seminal underground gems from the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band--Part One, Vol. 2 and A Child's Guide To Good & Evil--can be seen as encyclopedic primers of the late-'60s Los Angeles musical experience.

Tracks:

01. Eighteen Is Over The Hill
02. In The Country
03. Ritual #1
04. Our Drummer Always Plays In The Nude
05. As The World Rises And Falls
06. Until The Poorest Of People Have Money To Spend
07. Watch Yourself
08. A Child's Guide To Good & Evil
09. Ritual #2
10. A Child Of A Few Hours Is Burning To Death
11. As Kind As Summer
12. Anniversary Of World War III
13. Shifting Sands (Single Mix)
14. 1906 (Single Mix)

here

*** The Electric Prunes - Mass in F Minor (us 1968) trippy as hell monastic psychedelia! ***


Realistically, this isn't really an Electric Prunes. It's more of a studio based wacked out concept album along the lines of the Zodiac's Cosmic Sounds. The Prunes became tenuously attached as producer Dave Hassinger wanted to find a more commercial vehicle for the band and somehow came upon the concept of psychedelic Catholic chants. It seems that the Prunes ended up a bit used and abused, but the word is that they went along for the ride anyway. Holding the creative tiller was none other than cult jazz/psych guru, David Axelrod. Axelrod is responsible for all of the arranging duties on this album (I think we'll keep the basic composition credits with some long dead Catholic monks), and he did a very groovy job. The trouble was that his arrangements were a little over the heads of the talented, but not musically schooled fellows making up the garage rocking Electric Prunes. Thus, the band ended up as little more than session musicians on their own album accompanying even more session musicians. There's an urban legend that the Prunes don't even show up on the record. The rhythm section of bassist Mark Tulin and drummer Quint do play on every track, and singer James Lowe remains as the lead voice of the monastic vocal, but it's still clearly Axelrod in the creative driver's seat. Once you get the bad taste out of your mouth of the band being sidelined, you'll find that this is a damn fine album. In fact, it's more consistent than any of the band's proper releases, although the awesome pop punch of "I Had To Much To Dream Last Night" or "A Long Day's Flight" is notably absent. You will find the psychedelic religious strains of "Kyrie Eleison," which is very recognizable from its use in the film Easy Rider. It's also the most basic psych rock style track on the album, especially with the nails-on-glass noise explosion of the instrumental mid section. For the rest of this short album (26 minutes!) Axelrod adopts an M.O. that renders the tracks a little formulaic. We get short passages of the Latin-language church chants bridged together by instrumental sections mostly alternating between blasts of acid fried guitar leads and amusingly pompous fanfares from the orchestra. "Benedictus" includes a notable keyboard and bass guitar break as well. Fortunately, Axelrod's arranging skills are top notch and keep things interesting throughout. This disc is really more of an Axelrod album than an Electric Prunes album, and if you approach it as such I think you'll find plenty to like. Listen and enter the psychedelic gothic cathedral.

Tracks:


1 Kyrie Eleison (3:21)
2 Gloria (5:45)
3 Credo (5:02)
4 Sanctus (2:57)
5 Benedictus (4:52)
6 Agnus Dei (4:29)
here

See Also Os Mundi - Latin Mass

Electric Prunes S/T Lp:here

*** Fever Tree - Fever Tree (US psych 1968)***


The psychedelic era had many outstanding acts and while they've been praised for years at large, in the same time we missed on some seriously wild stuff. Probably one of the most interesting nuggets was originally a Texas based group -Fever Tree. These guys made their high point in 1968 with a tribute to the Summer of Love’s host city, a cracking single San Francisco Girls. This tune was their first real hit and eventually got released on Self-titled album recorded the same year for UNI Records and renamed Return Of The Native... three more albums were to follow in the next two years. Fever Tree were formed in Houston with Rob Landes (keyboards), Dennis Keller (vocals), E.E. "Bud" Wolfe (bass), John Tuttle (drums) and Michael Knust (guitar), initially carrying amusing name –Bostwick Vines. The name changed in 1967 and the band subsequently signed with Chicago-based Mainstream Records. Two singles were recorded (watch them out garage gem collectors!), but they didn't break through and gained virtually no attention, hence the boys eventually signed to Uni Records and recorded their debut LP for the label. Although only a minor chart hit, San Francisco Girls (Return Of The Native) received a lot of airplay on American FM rock stations as well as on John Peel’s Top Gear radio programme in the UK.

There was one man responsible for the the group's success –Scott Holtzmann, who became Fever Tree's manager and producer. He also stayed very close to every song that the band ever recorded. Though Fever Tree album would mainly be recorded in Houston, some of the material was registered in Los Angeles, where orchestral arrangements were added by Gene Page and David Angel. Page was best known for his work on many soul hits, including the Righteous Brothers' You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin', while Angel will always be most famous for his contributions to Love's Forever Changes, now regarded as one of the richest folk/ psych albums of all times. Unfortunately no other tunes from this great LP hit the charts, although The Sun Also Rises seemed to have some pop potential with its arching upbeat melody, sweeping strings, and jazzy piano passages. The night the band recorded that song, a tremendous Houston rainstorm came up and somebody had the idea to put a mike outside and record the storm, eventually overdubbed in the final take. You can hear the cars driving down the street and the thunder at the very end of the song. Elvis Presley loved that tune and wanted to cover it, but for an unknown reason it never happened. Another brilliant track was a cover of Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out by The Beatles, which had actually comprised two sides of the same Beatles single in late 1965. Circus, psychedelic arrangement is rockier that original version and personally my favourite. There was also a version of Buffalo Springfield's Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing that counts as one of the earliest covers of a Neil Young's composition.

Much of the material on Fever Tree boasted multi-sectioned structures and classical influences that not only reflected psychedelic experimentation, but looked forward in some ways to progressive and symphonic rock. The record had some fantastic arrangements and heavy psychedelic sound, while Dennis Keller's vocals were as good as Eric Burdon's or Joe Cocker's. As an effect Fever Tree had peaked at #156 on The Billboard Chart, which is not a great success, but a certain measure of popularity. Original UNI issues are only a moderately rare LPs at the moment, the only problem is getting this record in excellent condition as they were definitely played. In recent years Sundazed Music reissue has seen the light, which is a good proposition for those, who want to have a mint copy! Don't forget about Fever Tree, it's as good as Strawberry Alarm Clock and maybe even better than H.P. Lovercraft. [PL]

Tracklist:
01. Imitation Situation (Toccata And Fugue)
02. Where Do You Go
03. San Francisco Girls (Return Of The Native)
04. Ninety-Nine And One-Half
05. Man Who Paints The Pictures
06. Filligree And Shadow
07. The Sun Also Rises
08. Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out
09. Unlock My Door
10. Come With Me (Rainsong)
here

*** REPOST -Tripsichord -Tripsichord Music Box (1971 us fantastic west coast psychedelic akarma remaster edition with 05 bonus tracks -320K) ***



Psychelatte says: do you have ANY idea how much i love this album? Why havent you downloaded it yet??

Tripsichord Music Box, whose shortened name Tripsichord is sometimes used, came from San Francisco. Even though their album was released in 1971, late for the fast paced 1966-1968 period of San Francisco psychedlia, it is still considered an equal to the best and most brilliantly adept albums from the acid rock movement—a Bay area music specialty based upon distorted (crazy) guitars. They were managed by Matthew Katz, who also worked with Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape and It's A Beautiful Day. In 1968, he allowed It's a Beautiful Day to press a single and release an LP on his own label before they signed with Columbia.It was San Francisco Sound that released the first recording of Tripsichord Music Box—the single “Timesand Seasons”/ “Sunday the Third”(San Francisco Sound 115). The resulting sound was certainly unique, but the LP format was too restrictive in its length to allow the band to express the entirety of their talents. And if these two titles did possess rare qualities, particularly on “Sunday the Third”, they were hardly original and didn’t stand out against the masses of music produced in1969. It was also at this time that Matthew Katz concocted the idea to release a compilation—one that was destined to lift up his young protĂ©gĂ©s. Titled “San Francisco Sound”, the compilation was released on the mysterious label Fifth Pipe Dream (F.P.D. 11680) and brought together tracks from It’s a Beautiful Day ("Bulgaria" and the imaginative and unedited "Aquarian Dream", the two sides of their first single), Black Swan (a rather ordinary pop group—the weakest of the four), Indian Puddin Pipes (the formidable "Hashish" and "Water and Wine") and of course Tripsichord Music Box. Tripsichord contributed three songs: "You’re the Woman", "It’sNot Good" (these two songs are actually one), and "Family Song". By far the longest tracks on the album, they are superb, and even though the vocals are themselves excellent, it is above all the explosive and burning guitar and organ solos, and the high-tension melodies that keep our attention. The perfect illustration of acid rock at its highest level, these three tunes that are found nowhere elsehave been added, on this CD, to the nine songs from the original Tripsichord album—providing a morecomplete look into what was Tripsichord Music Box and five bonus tracks.

Track List:

01.On The Last Ride -4:42
02.We Have Passed Away -2:45
03.Black Door -2:55
04.The New Word -4:40
05.Son Of The Morning-5:34
06.Short Order Steward -5:04
07.The Narrow Gate -3:35
08.Fly Baby -6:26
09.Everlasting Joy -4:19
10.You're The Woman (bonus) -3:35
11.It's Not Good (bonus) -3:10
12.Family Song (bonus) -8:26
13.Times & Seasons (bonus) -3:23
14.Sunday The Third (bonus) -3:19

Tripsichord:

*Randy Gordon—drums
*Frank Straight—guitar
*Dave Zandonatti—bass
*Oliver Mckinney—keyboards and organ
*Bill Carr—vocals
*Ron McNeeley-vocals

here