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Thursday 16 June 2011

Front Page Review -Mystic Soldiers -The missing tracks (info)


I have just discovered that there were two tracks missing from the issue posted below. I guess it was on other issues, so I found the tracks and here they are. sorry only 256kbps but at least its completion and makes the album a more satisfying length.

08 What are You looking For
09 I'm satisfied

(see original post (below) for re-upped album..

Sunday 12 June 2011

Quiet Sun - Mainstream 1975 (UK, Jazz-Rock/Fusion, Canterbury Scene)


Having originated from a Dulwich College band by the name of Pooh and the Ostrich Feather, Quiet Sun was formed in 1970 after MacCormick had made friends with Robert Wyatt, the son of a friend of his mother's. The band integrated jazz elements and sparkling keyboard sounds into their complex music - similar to Soft Machine - but Manzanera's energetic guitar made their music very different from the Softs' who had not been using any guitar (other than bass guitar) on their regular albums before the 1975 release of Bundles, and had used reeds as the main other melody instruments aside of keyboards.

Quiet Sun split up in 1972, Manzanera to Roxy Music, MacCormick to Matching Mole, Hayward to This Heat, and Jarrett began to teach mathematics.

In 1975, Manzanera booked a studio for 26 days to record his album Diamond Head and got Quiet Sun together again to record an album from their old composed material in the studio at the same time. This first and only album of theirs, with participation of Brian Eno and the late Ian MacCormick, titled Mainstream was critically acclaimed and became the New Musical Express' album of the month. One of Quiet Sun's songs appears on Robert Wyatt's Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard, under the name "Team Spirit". Additionally, reworked versions of "Mummy was an asteroid, Daddy was a small non-stick kitchen utensil" and "Rongwrong" both appear on the album "801 Live" ("Mummy was an asteroid, Daddy was a small non-stick kitchen utensil" appears under the name "East of Asteroid").
~Wiki


Track List:
1. Sol Caliente (Manzanera)
2. Trumpets With Motherhood (Hayward)
3. Bargain Classics (Jarrett
4. R. F. D. (Jarrett
5. Mummy Was An Asteroid, Daddy Was A Small Non-stick Kitchen Utensil (MacCormick)
6. Trot (Manzanera
7. Rongwrong (Hayward)

Charles Hayward - drums, percussion, keyboards, voice
Dave Jarrett - Fender Rhodes & Steinway pianos, Farfisa & Hammond organs, VCS3 synthesizer
Phil Manzanera - electric 6 & 12 string guitars, treated guitars, Fender Rhodes piano
Bill MacCormick - electric bass, treated bass, back-up voices
with
Brian Eno - synthesizer, treatments & oblique strategies
here

Friday 10 June 2011

Fred - Fred (1971 us, psychedelic folk/progressive gem)


The experience that what was Fred, goes beyond what will be said here, as the music made by the band in the years 1970-1974 goes beyond the tracks of this album. The hope in these words is to give a little historical context to the music being published here, for the first time in a collection more than thirty years after it was first recorded.

Ken Price and Joe DeChristopher began playing together while students at Bucknell University in Lewisburg Pennsylvania in 1967. Ken played keyboards, mainly a beat-up electric Wurlitzer Piano. Joe fancied himself a guitar player, but took up Bass to play in Ken’s Band “Still at Large”. When the lead Guitar player dropped out late in 1968, Ken and Joe stayed together, adding John, a young Bass player. Unfortunately, John’s freshman roommate, Bo Fox, had been snatch up by another popular fraternity dance hall band, “The Gross National Product” a trio of Bo on the Drums and two upperclassmen on Guitar and Keyboards.

While the drumming set was not well filled, Joe and Ken thought they could also use a vocalist to help out. Their classmate Gary Rosenberg self-styled poet and disc jockey at the college radio station, steered the to David Rose recently back at Bucknell after a tour of service as a conscientious objector (running a Quaker related home of disadvantaged youth in a tough part of Paris). David made a great contribution as a stager and frontman, keeping quiet the fact about that he’d been trained to play the Violin, which he started doing at the age of six.

The band known occasionally as “David Rose and his Orchid” or “Mustang Turfbinder and the Swelltones” was improving but still need help on the Drums. Help came in the autumn of 1969, when Bo’s GNP band-mates had graduated and left town, leaving him available. Again with an assist from Gary, Ken, Joe, John and David, now willing to try the Violin in the context of improvisational Rock ‘n’ Roll, matched up with Bo. Amidst the belated arrival in small-town, rural America of blossoming counterculture of Peace, Love and drugs, a wonderful musical experience was born.

Gary continued part of our experience, as a friend an source for new music from the likes of The Band, Procol Harum, Traffic, Jethro Tull, King Crimson and Frank Zappa to name a few. We spent the month of January 1970 intending to write a hundred original tunes, a task at which we failed miserably. Even so, we knew that there was something special happening, and as young and as inexperienced as we were, there was a growing will among us to keep with it.

School ended for most of us either by choice or by graduation in May 1970, but we stayed together most of us living in either of two small harm houses about 4 miles west of town. John transferred to a school in Boston, and we accepted into our ranks of ex-collegians, the outsider Michael “Bones” Robinson, self made bass player and song-writer.

We spend the summer smelling honeysuckle along the banks of the Susquehanna, on those trips back from high schools and bars to the south, near Harrisburg and York, we later spent our time building a house out of a barn for David’s family to live in (after his apartment was ruined by flood of 1972), learning to play, to write and manage on our shared income from playing music.

We attracted diverse collection of friends and well-wishers along the way, including artist/photographer L.J. Kopf roaches Roger Brown and Pat Biggs, sound engineer Charlie Bozenhard (who put together the components of a system to amplify David), Folk musicians Tom Patten and Ira Packman (who opened for some of our concerts), a group of ex-students who became carpenters working as “Grassy Flats” and many others, too numerous to mention.

By late 1971, we'd worked up several original tunes (most of them included on this album.) We managed to produce a 45 rpm single, containing "Salvation Lady" and "a love song", both with lyrics from Gary. David preached the vision of a self-sufficient community of artists, self supporting and true to itself. Gary continued to write poetry, much of which was never put to music. LJ took pictures, designed posters, and showed slides at our concerts.

Everyone took a role in the life of the band, on and off the' stage. We covered Procol Harum, Frank Zappa, Jethro Tull and Mahavishnu Orchestra, enlisting the talenls of wunderkind Peter Eggets on piano, drums when Bo took a break, horn arrangements, and a work ethic we’d never found on our own. Up into 1973, we were existing on the outside of a society in generational turmoil, enjoying our role as outsiders, defiant that hired us, and the booking agents who tried to make a dollar in marketing us.

Even so in those early years especially, we were more than the music, and bigger than the sum of our parts. With the eventual addition of Peter as a full time member of the band, came the departure of Gary, and ultimately later on the dissolution of the band, but alas, that is not the story of the music on this album.

Enjoy what is here, know there is more recorded Fred music to come, and that what is recorded here, while standing on its own merit, was also a part of the seasoning process which led to the music made later under the influence of the formidable composing and arranging skills of Peter Eggers. Welcome to the first recorded music of Fred.

By Joe DeChristopher (Lewisburg Pennsylvania)

Tracks
1. Four Evenings (Mike Robison, Gary Rosenberg) - 6:39
2. Soft Fisherman (David Rose, Gary Rosenberg) - 6:31
3. Salvation Lady (Ken Price, David Rose, Gary Rosenberg) - 6:01
4. By The Way (Joe DeChristopher, David Rose, Gary Rosenberg) - 6:45
5. I'll Go On (Joe DeChristopher, Ken Price, David Rose, Gary Rosenberg) - 4:26
6. For Fearless Few (Mike Robison) - 3:47
7. A Love Song (Joe DeChristopher, Gary Rosenberg) - 4:40
8. Booking Agent Blues (Joe DeChristopher) - 4:33
9. Windwords (Joe DeChristopher, Gary Rosenberg) - 6:51
10.A Love Song (45rpm version) (Joe DeChristopher, Gary Rosenberg) - 3:58

Fred
*Gary Rosenberg - Lyrics, Percussion
*Joe DeChristopher - Guitar
*David Rose - Keyboards, Violin, Guitar, Vocals
*Bo Fox - Drums
*Ken Price - Keyboards
*Mike Robison - Bass, Guitar, Vocals
*Peter Eggers - Drums, Piano

here

Thursday 9 June 2011

***The Search Party - Montgomery Chapel (1969 us rare Christian folk rock blended psychedelic - 320K)***


SONGIC LIMITED is pleased to announce this fantastic new release on Erebus Records containing 4-page booklet with band info.

A primitive Christian folkrock LP which hits some truly unique moods and sounds on about 2/3rds of the tracks.

Obviously inspired by the westcoast "psychedelic" sounds of the era, the Search Party take compositions by their spiritual mentor, a Catholic middle-aged priest, and turn them into primitive California garage folkrock and psych with fuzz leads and raw vocals!

Most Christian "folkrock" LPs suffer from still having one foot left in Sunday School, but these young seminarians have definitely broken through to the other side.

Side 1 ends with an unparalleled 9-minute downer folkrock excursion with heavy soul-searching lyrics that alone makes "Montgomery Chapel" worth checking out, but beware -- it's crude, even the female vocalist has a strange edge. Unrehearsed confessions from a basement (by Music Emporium).

As with all Erebus Records titles this was remastered at the legendary Abbey Road Studios.


Track List:

01.Speak To Me
02.Renee Child
03.Melanya
04.When He Calls
05.So Many Things Have Got Me Down
06.You And I
07.All But This
08.Poem By George Hall
09.The Decidedly Short Epic Of Mr Alvira
10.The News Is You
here

Tuesday 7 June 2011

Front Page Review - Mystic Soldiers (1968 boston very good psychedelic rock - rare 1997 Big Beat records edition)



****Psychelatte says: Please see missing extra tracks link after first link below..just discovered these!!

For many first-time listeners of The Front Page Review their one and only album, "Mystic Soldiers" will seem like just another footnote in the endless ranks of bands to have come out in the late sixties.

Based out of Boston, many of their songs are keyboard dominated, and Steve Cataldo's vocals will leave you with a feeling of having heard any one of their particular songs on any one of the countless oldies stations dominating the airwaves of your favorite city.

You should listen a little closer, however, because there are some fine aural antics going on in the background of many of these songs.

The opening number, "Prophecies/Morning Blue" is almost downright progressive with its theme of nuclear war, a building fuzz guitar, and a breathtaking tempo shift halfway through and then a Doors-like organ fueled coda.

"Prism Fawn" sounds much like the Who's "Relax" from the Sell Out album....but once again, the lyrics are fixated on doom, One of my favorite songs is "Feels Like Love"-it's a wonderful time capsule to the sixties you could have easily found on the first two Nazz albums.

The electric, harpsichord-like keyboards play nicely against the tinny rhythm guitar work.\

"Silver Children" follows, and yields another remarkable shift in tone; we go from happy love to the familiar Doors territory of The End with more of a mystical heaviness.

"Valley Of Eyes", with a decidedly more urgent tempo, goes from mystical to apocalyptic protest.

"Without You" is more wistful and sad; a nice echo effect is induced onto Cataldo's vocal.

The last song to complete the album proper is "For The Best Offer", plays like an extended psychedelic dream with its series of different fade-ins and fade-outs and the persistent image of `she's the girl of a streetcorner tree'.

In all Front Page Review dish up the kind of psychedelic music you would expect from this time period, but they add a marvelous lyrical twist to many of their songs that sometimes is manifested in occasionally twisted music (by Robert Cossaboon)

Track List:
01.Prophecies/Morning Blue
02.Prism Fawn
03.One Eyed Minor
04.Feels Like Love
05.Silver Children
06.Valley Of Eyes
07.Without You
08.What are You looking For
09 I'm Satisfied
10.For The Best Offer
here

Thursday 2 June 2011

***Kensington Market - Avenue Road (1968 canada, psychedelic fusing folk with classical and jazz elements)***


A late night jam with the Lovin' Spoonful's Zal Yanofsky in 1967 would prove to be the big break for Toronto's Kensington Market. As Nicholas Jennings tells it in Before the Gold Rush, his excellent chronicle of that city's Yorkville scene, "Knocked out by the band's sophisticated sound, Yanofsky went down to New York where he raved about them to Felix Pappalardi (Cream, the Youngbloods). Pappalardi flew out to Toronto in October to check them out. Before he left the band's rehearsal space that night, Pappalardi had signed the band to a two-record deal", leading to the recording of this eclectic album for Warner Brothers.

With a couple of seven-inchers on the Stone label already under their belts, the band had just recruited soul shouter Luke Gibson after his own Luke and the Apostles called it quits in the late summer of 1967. Had it not been for that fortuitous hook-up, the band might have ended up a mere footnote in the already crowded Yorkville annals. As it happened, though, with Warner's money and Pappalardi's acumen, the band's debut LP Avenue Road was released early the following year to cheers on the home front and what could be politely described as bewildered indifference south of the border. It seems that everything from the bizarre title (which was really just a street running through Toronto's hipster neighbourhood at the time) to the wintry Canadian imagery on the cover left their American label execs flummoxed.

The winds of opportunity continued to waft the band's way throughout 1968 with a week-long residence at New York's renowned Bitter End early on and a coveted support slot for the Jefferson Airplane out at Hamilton (Ontario)'s McMaster University later that summer. Kensington Market led off with a rerecorded and reworked 'I Would Be the One', which would scale its way up to #18 on Toronto's influential CHUM-AM chart in July.

This slower, buffed-up 'I Would Be the One' opens Avenue Road and it has Pappalardi's paws all over it, the rough garage charm of the original Stone single giving way to some crisp horns and blithe piano rhythms. Actually, much of Keith McKie's tepid songwriting is augmented - and sometimes rescued - by Pappalardi's spacious production, like the ballad 'Aunt Violet's Knee', a potential snoozer fleshed out somewhat with some medieval brass and sugary strings, or the obliquely psychedelic horn that tints the lovely 'Looking Glass'.

And though much of Avenue Road is fairly standard stuff, it is a revealing artifact of what were no doubt heady days in Canadian music history.
by Michael Panontin

Tracks
1. I Would Be The One (Keith McKie) - 2:37
2. Speaking Of Dreams (Luke Gibson) - 2:26
3. Colour Her Sunshine (Keith McKie) - 3:00
4. Phoebe (Gene Martynec) - 3:38
5. Aunt Violet's Knee (Keith McKie) - 4:21
6. Coming Home Soon (Keith McKie) - 2:45
7. Presenting Myself Lightly (Gene Martynec) - 2:15
8. Looking Glass (Keith McKie) - 3:21
9. Beatrice (Gene Martynec) - 2:20
10.Girl Is Young (Keith McKie) - 3:08

Kensington Market
*Alex Darou - Bass
*Keith McKie - Guitar, Vocals
*Jimmy Watson - Drums, Sitar
*Gene Martynec - Guitar, Piano, Vocals,
*Luke Gibson - Vocals, Guitar

here

Wednesday 1 June 2011

Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera - Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera (1967 uk outsanding psych/beat)


Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera picked up on the British psychedelic movement after supporting The Pink Floyd as a soul/blues band called 'The Five Proud Walkers', the lineup was Richard Hudson (Hud) on drums, Colin Forster on lead guitar, Jimmy Horrocks (Horovitz) on organ and flute, John ????? (bass) and Dave Terry on vocals and harmonica. The boys took inspiration from the experience and it wasn't long before the change of both music and image.

They gigged for a while playing blues based material,but gradually got interested in more free-form stuff. John ???? was replaced by John Ford and the band searched for a new name. Velvet Opera was chosen initially, which was amended to Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera within days after Dave turned up to a session wearing a long black cape and a preachers hat and had to endure some piss-taking from the rest of the band (Elmer Gantry was the fictional hero of a Sinclair Lewis novel and 1960 film about a preacher). The name stuck and Dave became Elmer. By this time Elmer, influenced by the music of John Cage, was making experimental taped backing sounds and using signal generators on stage in the act.

The band began to get quite a following and played clubs and university gigs all over the country and at London venues like the Marquee and 100 club and Electric garden. They would also occasionally play at the Speakeasy where Jimi Hendrix would jam with them, also people like Jeff beck and Eric Burdon. The band had been recorded independantly for a while by Southern Music Publishing, who had their own, four -track, studio in Denmark Street, and it wasn't long before they had secured a record deal with CBS's "Direction" label. The problem was that Southern Music had originally signed them as a bluesy/jazzy band and they were not very keen on trying to get new, more riotous stage act on disc.

The group were persuaded to do more "regular" material. The first recording was the song, written by Elmer, that the band were best known for, 'Flames'. The record was on jukeboxes all over the country and was covered live by bands as diverse as "The Joe Loss Orchestra" and "Led Zeppelin", in fact Jimmy Page recently told Elmer that Flames was the only non-Zep number that they included in their early stage-act (Robert Plant also included it in his 2001-2002 tour). However, for the average radio listener the song was too far ahead of its time and despite live popularity and numerous radio plays the song only managed to achieve number 30 in the charts. Direction did however, take faith in the band to record second and third singles and more importantly a self-titled album.

The group's second single, "Mary Jane" was taken off the BBC playlist after they realised that the song was the slang term for Marijuana. The third single, Volcano, was written by Howard & Blakely, who had written hits for Dave Dee etc. After three singles and the album, major success had still not been achieved. The agent at the time, Terry King, had booked the group a lot of shows, they were regularly appearing on the BBC on John Peel's show, among others, they were playing, touring and promoting hard, but recording success was still elusive. Colin Forster was then replaced by Paul Brett but this still didn't acheive the desired result.

Disagreements erupted within the band, which lead to a split from Elmer and so the Velvet Opera was formed. Elmer Gantry remembers : "eventually, EGVO broke up due to a change of direction within the band. Paul Brett, (who incidentally I had worked with previously and had brought into the band following our initial success) although a brilliant guitarist, had a strong interest in more folkish music and, with Hud's increasing interest in playing instruments other than drums, the band started to change direction. I did not welcome this change, and whilst I had great admiration for all the other members as musicians, was not interested. There followed a coup in which the other members of the band attempted to just replace me and keep the name.

This would clearly have been ridiculous as I was already known as Elmer Gantry and the band was largely know for its riotous, envelope-pushing stage presence, not for electro-folk. The result was that they brought twelve string guitarist folk-blues guitarist Johnny Joyce in, and continued as The Velvet Opera and eventually The Strawbs and The Monks producing the novelty hits "Union Man" and "Nice legs, shame about the face" and I continued with a new line-up, formed from the Downliners sect, as the Elmer Gantry band. I also later had a lead role in "Hair" in the west end, recorded on two Alan Parsons Project albums, did the lead vocals on Cozy powell's album, sang and wrote with Jon Lord on his solo album."


Tracklist
1. Intro
2. Mother Writes
3. Mary Jane
4. I Was Cool
5. Walter Sly Meets Bill Bailey
6. Air
7. Lookin' for a Happy Life
8. Flames
9. What's the Point of Leaving
10.Long Nights of Summer
11.Dream Starts
12.Reaction of a Young Man
13.Now She's Gone
14.Flames (Single Version, Bonus Track)
15.Salisbury Plain (Bonus Track)
16.Mary Jane (Single Version, Bonus Track)
17.Dreamy (Bonus Track)
18.To Be With You (Bonus Track)
19.And I Remember (Bonus Track)
20.Talk Of The Devil (Bonus Track)
21.The Painter (Bonus Track)

Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera:
*Dave Terry ("Elmer Gantry") – Vocals, Guitar, Harmonica
*Colin Forster - Lead Guitar
*Jimmy Horrocks (Horovitz) – Organ, Flute
*John Ford – Vocals, Bass Guitar
*Richard Hudson – Vocals, Ddrums, Sitar

here

Mad Dog - Dawn of the Seventh Sun (1969 us aka C1/C2 great mix of heavy psychedelic, west coast, hard rock, jazz rock and soft ballads)


Surprisingly good, previously unreleased album of California psychedelia from 1969.

The singing isn't terrific, but it's ok, but the sun-drenched psychedelic leads are great and it has that vibe! "Monstruous & unreleased at the time heavy/psychedelic/westcoast artefact of the highest order.

This is one of the five best ever promo only releases to emerge from California.

Only released in a quantity of a couple of copies to get a major record deal that never materialized.

Three of the songs were used in a low-budget biker flick called "Black Angels".

The original demo lp had only a plain black label with no kinds of credits. We found this hidden gem looking for unreleased music by the band “The Zoo” of "Presents Chocolate Moose" fame.

The original producer told us that a demo only lp was released by “The Zoo” after the “Chocolate Moose” album.

The slightly different line-up had the name “Joyful Noise” (you can see a scan of the acetate in Hans Pokora’s 4001 record collector’s dream) but at this time they were looking for a tougher name to fit to the music and they found “Mad Dog”.

Under this name a couple of test pressings were done. So we made a re-release deal straight away. The tape was sent for remastering and cover artwork.

To our surprise the guy told us, after hearing the tape, that he knew the music and that it had already been re-released by another label without any kinds of info using the numbers from the dead end part of the vinyl wich was C1/C2!

The C was for Cavett, the producer’s name. Since the project was already paid, we decided to go on with the release to please collectors with an amazing remastering straight from the mastertapes, and an insert with unseen pictures and a band bio written by Morgan Cavett.

Track List:
01.Suite For Two Guitars
02.Military Disgust
03.Ala Ala
04.Fort Huachuca Blues
05.Everything's Alright
06.Dawn Of The Seventh Sun
07.The Fast Song
08.When It Touches You
09.Soulful Bowlful
10.Free Fall

Mad Dogs:
*Howard M. Leese (lead guitar, background vocals)
*Terry Gottlieb (bass, background vocals)
*Vincent "Murphy" Carfagna (rhythm guitar)
*Steve Goldstein (drums, percussion)
*Gary Witkosky (lead vocals, background vocals, tenor sax, flute)

amended link, whoops

* * *Victoria - Victoria (1971 us great psychedelic west coast - Shadoks Records reissue)* * *


* Psychelatte says: this is a folky psych sound, in my opinion. but still far out.

Though initially recorded in the late '60s and early '70s, the tracks that make up Victoria's sole release didn't see wide release until nearly 30 years later, seeing a further re-release on Shadoks in 2005.

Consisting of a small limited-edition album and a variety of further cuts from tape and acetate, Victoria's appeal lies perhaps most in the sextet's ability to get a lot out of limited resources.

Opening cut "Peace" is almost surprisingly lush and detailed, triumphant brass parts mixing in with the exultant rock & roll from the band.

From there the 15 songs on the CD wend their way, ranging from gentle contemplation to fuller-bodied affairs, less fried psychedelia than the kind of widescreen pop that coexisted with it.

The exact lineup of the band is unclear -- only four people are credited, not all of whom appear to have performed at the same time -- but one Greg Ruban was the core songwriter and arranger, and it's his ability to capture his band surprisingly well that ensures Victoria is more than simply a rare curio.

In ways he simply reflects his time -- "Gevaro" sounds like a lost cut by contemporary Santana, while the proto-prog of "Village of Etaf (Prelude and Overture)" goes on a touch too long in the end.

Throughout, singers Maureen Deidelbaum, Cherryl Simpson, and Sharon Barton -- or some combination of them -- acquit themselves well enough. One of their best efforts is one of the quietly wittiest -- "Never Knew Blues," the title of which is both somewhat descriptive (the descending blues influence is mostly heard in the verses) and an apt section of lyric.

Intriguingly, some of the best tunes never made the original LP release -- "Mister Let Me Go" is a lovely piano-led country song à la the Band, while the autoharp-led "Wheels" feels almost like a cousin to the third Velvet Underground album thanks to the murky rhythm section and steady rumbling pace (by Ned Raggett).

Track List:
01.Peace - 2:44
02.Cumberland - 4:41
03.Gevaro - 4:11
04.Ride a Rainbow - 2:50
05.Never Knew Blues - 4:58
06.Down to the Park (Earth Day Park) - 2:57
07.Village of Etaf (Prelude and Overture) - 12:23
08.Core of the Apple - 8:09

Bonus Tracks:
09.Mister Let Me Go - 3:37
10.Johny and Lisa - 3:02
11.Peace - 2:52
12.Cumberland - 2:51
13.Child of Princess - 3:07
14.Sundance - 1:46
15.Wheels - 2:02






here