Biker fuzz

Posted on 2006/12/11 by Little Danny

First commercially available in the mid-‘60s, the fuzzbox was the earliest mass-produced means for distorting your guitar tone. The unassuming device was heard memorably on the Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” and the countless American garage bands who styled themselves on the Stones seized upon the noisy, harmonic sustain of fuzztone distortion and its ability to smooth over the inadequacies of cheap guitars, and the inadequacies of the guitarists who played cheap guitars.

Possibly because it bore some analogy to the sound of a rasping exhaust pipe, fuzz also became, thanks to one musician – Davie Allan – officially identified with biker movies, an fleeting B-movie sub-genre which briefly captured the late ‘60s adolescent American male imagination. Marauding gangs of outlaw bikers might outrun The Man, but they could never shake the fuzztone guitars that followed them from exploit to sleazeball exploit.

Only “Cycle-Delic,” the first of this week’s selections, is biker music proper in that it was deliberately produced to cash in on the biker phenomenon. The other selections, however, conform to the basic aesthetic: big, brimming with testosterone, and guaranteed to lower your IQ by a point or two.

1. The Arrows featuring Davie Allan, Cycle-Delic (Tower)
He got his start in the ‘60s as a for-hire session guitarist but, after an odd 45 or two and a fairly straightforward album of surf-ish guitar instrumentals, Davie Allan, along with his group the Arrows, transformed himself into the undisputed king of ‘60s biker soundtracks, single-handedly defining the genre with anthemic, fuzzed-out contributions to film classics like Devil’s Angels, Born Losers, The Glory Stompers, and The Wild Angels.

Featured famously on “Blue’s Theme” a bona fide hit from the soundtrack to Roger Corman’s The Wild Angels, Davie Allan’s guitar sound – a rich, searing fuzztone – was instantly identifiable. It’s the mutated psychedelia of 1968’s “Cycle-Delic,” however, with its especially strident form of fuzz, which stands out amongst Allan’s work.

Cycle-Delic (excerpt one)
A funny thing starts to happen if you examine “Cycle-Delic” more closely: let’s just slow that record down a bit. Does Davie Allan control the fuzztone or does the fuzztone control Davie Allan? Man vs. Machine!

Cycle-Delic (excerpt two)
Get really close and “Cycle-delic” confirms what you’ve always suspected.  With enough magnification, you can actually hear fuzz breaking apart into its individual molecular components, proving incontrovertibly that fuzztone distortion is a living, breathing organism.

Davie Allan is still active today. Do check out his website, especially its excellent and exhaustive discography, including Allan’s own annotations.

2. Flower Power, Stop! Check It! (Tune-Kel)
From 1969, “Stop! Check It!” is the last of five releases by the group known as Flower Power. Their name suggests peace, love, and understanding, but the energy levels and agitation of “Stop! Check It!” suggest something more along the lines of meth lab. This is just one of those transcendent records that defies description.

The Flower Power hailed from Gulfport, Mississippi. Tune-Kel, their record label, was a New Orleans based operation better known for its soul and R&B releases.

3. Collision, I Gotta Know (Side Three)
I still have yet to turn up anything conclusive on Collision, or the Brothers Lopez. The best thing about “I Gotta Know,” though, is that it’s one of those records that could have been released anywhere between 1969 and 1982. This has something to do with the fact that it originated in San Antonio, but just as much to do with the eternally satisfying combination of big amplifiers, Harley choppers, and that deep-seated, eternal urge to plow through a case of Pearl brew on a Saturday night.

Posted on 2006/12/11 by Little Danny | Posted in Garage Bands | 11 Comments

West Coast Latin jazz

Posted on 2006/12/04 by Little Danny

Latin jazz on the West Coast was something different than it was on the East. It was something that percolated its way down through California’s diffuse network of musicians, attracting its adherents from the Mexican-American and African-American communities, the scattering of Cuban and Puerto Rican percussionists who’d made their way to the Bay Area and Los Angeles for work, and the jazz musicians who’d already established themselves there. Cooler-toned, more studied, and more exotic, it was, very broadly, the work of jazz musicians playing in a Latin style, and sort of the inverse of what’d developed organically in the Puerto Rican neighborhoods of New York City, where musicians like Tito Puente and Eddie Palmieri might play Latin jazz without it ever dominating their broader repertoires of mambos, boleros, cha cha’s, etc.

Three choice examples of the West Coast variety of Latin jazz this week, lined up for you like so many Venice Beach head shops. See also these previous posts on Roscoe Weathers and Latin jazz vibes.

1. Carmello Garcia, Trane (R.A.H.M.P.)
Carmelo Garcia, often cited for his ‘60s work with Mongo Santamaria, played the loud, compact Latin drums known as timbales, and enjoyed a long career as a freelance session percussionist. His name deserves mention amongst the greats of West Coast Latin percussion, but 1971’s “Trane” seems to have been his only release as a bandleader.

This is Garcia’s tribute to John Coltrane (before the Coltrane tribute became an annoying cliché).  Much of the credit on “Trane” must be given to the excellent Latin jazz pianist Mark Levine, who composed and arranged it. That’s Levine’s piano we hear, and, of course, Garcia on percussion, and they’re joined here by Luis Gasca on trumpet and Pete Christlieb on saxophone. (Thanks to Mark Levine himself for that information!)

Producers Don Christlieb (brother of Pete) and Julian Spear, renowned bassoonist and bass clarinetist respectively (and themselves seasoned studio musicians), do not play on this, however.

This was the first release on what seems to have been Don Christlieb’s pet label project, and boy do I love the R.A.H.M.P. astrological insignia. There are other R.A.H.M.P. releases, actually, including 1972’s Jazz City LP by Christlieb’s son Pete, and, more recently, bassoon recordings by Frederick Moritz, and Don Christlieb himself.

2. Les McCann, McCanna (World-Pacific)
His recording career culminated commercially with 1969’s funky “Compared to What,” a genuine jazz hit, but “McCanna” better captures the great Les McCann, a Los Angeles-based jazz pianist capable of more complexity and sophistication than he’s sometimes given credit for.

Pulsing with dark, lovely energy, and, propelled by an extra bit of the Brazilian batucada-style percussive flair, “McCanna,” like California’s best Latin jazz, builds up a roiling boil without ever losing its cool. Recorded in 1964, “McCanna” is the title track from the first of two Latin-ish albums McCann recorded in the ‘60s (the second, Bucket O’ Grease, had a boogaloo theme). This version of “McCanna” was edited down for 45 rpm release from what was originally the 4:32 LP version.

In addition to McCann on piano, this selection featured Victor Gaskin (bass), Paul Humphries (drums), and Willie Correa (Latin percussion).

Les McCann’s releases tapered off somewhat in the ‘70s, but he is still active today.

3. Plas Johnson Quartet, Caravan (Tampa)
Composed by Juan Tizol, a trombonist for the Duke Ellington orchestra, “Caravan” rarely fails to bring out the demoniac energy of those who perform it, and this version, a barely restrained flurry of jarring piano chords and runaway percussion, is no exception.

Tampa was an obscure West Coast jazz label that existed for a few blips in the ‘50s. As a label they must have sensed their own impermanence – this same recording of “Caravan” was hustled out at least three other times: on Latin percussionist Mike Pacheco’s Bongo Session (on Tampa records), on the album Hot Skins: The Jazz Afro-Cuban Beat (essentially a repackaging on Interlude records of Bongo Session), and on drummer George Jenkins’ Drum Stuff album (also on Tampa). More confusingly, this version never, in any capacity, features Plas Johnson, the otherwise in-demand Los Angeles studio jazz saxophonist known for his work on Henry Mancini’s “The Pink Panther Theme”.

Either way, this was recorded in the late ‘50s. In reality, it featured Mike Pacheco (bongos), Shelly Manne (drums), Carlos Vidal (conga), Robert Gil (piano), Julio Ayala (bass), and Frank Guerroro (percussion).

Posted on 2006/12/04 by Little Danny | Posted in Latin | 16 Comments

’60s Filipino pop music

Posted on 2006/11/27 by Little Danny

Like other Asian nations, much of the ‘60s pop music, and many of the personalities, of the Philippines came from the country’s own stylized version of Western cinema. Still, as far as the pop music scene of ‘60s Metro Manila goes, it’s rock ‘n’ roll records that I think of as the galvanizing force. Imported by US servicemen stationed at Clark Air Force Base and Subic Naval Station, and played on Armed Forces radio, I imagine the impression such records might have made on the Filipino teenager, and I imagine, too, a city a bit like the pre-Beatles Liverpool of the late ‘50s. The records were hard to come by, the musical instruments were impossible to come by, and, by virtue of its scarcity and the music’s exotic energy and excitement, the fascination with rock ‘n’ roll was born.

Commensurate with a rising wave of activism and civil unrest in the Philippines – and a growing awareness of Filipino cultural identity – rock ‘n’ roll assumed more countercultural tones as the 1960s wore on, coalescing finally as Pinoy Rock in the late ’60s. It’s the earlier forms of ’60s Filipino pop music that are surveyed very noncomprehensively this week on Office Naps, though.

The amazing Pinoy Classic Rock site was indispensable in writing this week’s post.

1. Eddie Peregrina & The Blinkers, Blue Eyes (D’Swan)
Singer Eddie Peregrina seems to be best remembered for his tearjerking ballads. Here with his band the Blinkers, however, the harmonies, stinging fuzztone distortion, and rough ‘n’ tumble production are reminiscent of a ‘60s American garage band doing their Yardbirds impression.

The Blinkers were Salvador “Buddy” Yap (bass), Edgardo “Bee” Morelos (rhythm guitar), Max “Boy” Alcaide (drums), and Edgard “Eddie” Peregrina (vocals, lead guitar, and organ). I would guess that they recorded “Blue Eyes” in 1968.

Eddie Peregrina apparently died in a car accident at age thirty, sadly.

2. Vilma Valera, I Got You (I Feel Good) (Jonal)
In Philippines show business it seems that, as an actress in the movies, you would also sing in the movies. A popular actress of ‘60s Filipino cinema, Vilma Valera audaciously reworked this early James Brown dance floor hit as part of her performance for Boogaloo, a movie made in 1968. (Check out this fantastic lobby poster for it.)

Vilma Valera recorded several albums before her retirement from show business (and marriage to American Air Force commander Darrell Arthur Morrow) in the early ‘70s. She now resides in Sacramento, California.

3. Helen Gamboa, Shing-A-Ling Time (Jonal)
This is a cover version of the Liberty Belles’ girl-group soul anthem. It’s a big, brassy discotheque bombshell with Helen Gamboa, Filipino superstar, at the helm.

“Shing-A-Ling Time” was performed for 1968’s Shing-A-Ling-A-Loo – one of a suite of pictures from that year starring Ms. Gamboa.  (Other names included Bang-shang-a-lang, Let’s Go Hippie and Operation: Discotheque.)

As with her colleague Vilma Valera’s “I Got You,” the arranging and conducting was handled by the enigmatic D’Amarillo, who, if these two selections are representative, seems to have been the Philippines’ equivalent of hip ‘60s soundtrack composers like Lalo Schifrin and Quincy Jones.

Gamboa later married Vicente Tito Sotto, popular Filipino congressman and himself a former film and music personality.

4. Ronnie Villar & The Firedons, El Tomador (Mabuhay)
England’s Cliff Richard was one of the first Western rock ‘n’ rollers to break into the Asian pop markets, albeit with somewhat polished form of the music. The Shadows, Richard’s backing band, recorded separately as an instrumental combo, and they, like their American counterparts the Ventures, were quite the pop phenomenon in Asia as well. It’s their enduring “Apache” which is rendered here in a dramatic derivation by Ronnie Villar & the Firedons. The Firedons have that same sense of melody and precision, but carry the characteristic “wet” echo sound of the Shadows to wondrous extremes.

In addition to vocalist Ronnie Villar (who obviously did not appear on this), the Firedons included Willy Villar (lead guitar), David Llorente (rhythm guitar), Cesar Llorente (bass), and Waldy Cruz (drums). I’d guess that “El Tomador” was recorded around 1963.

Posted on 2006/11/27 by Little Danny | Posted in Miscellaneous Flotsam | 10 Comments

The Desert

Posted on 2006/11/20 by Little Danny

In the early 20th Century, arthritis-addled citizenry sought relief for their maladies in the warm, dry air of the desert. Decades later, Carlos Castaneda-addled graduate students set forth in the name of academic discovery, getting really, really baked in the warm, dry, visibly oscillating air of the desert. It’s always been a good place to disappear, the desert, and a good place to transform yourself, too.

1. The Sound Offs, The Angry Desert (Era)
Theirs was a vision of the Desert Southwest as a place where angelic choruses called wordlessly, a place where organ and relentless wind and surf guitars convened, a place where bad maracas went to die.

In reality, the Sound Offs were probably just another group of studio musicians from Los Angeles, that epicenter of 1960s pop culture. Having availed themselves of the latest in fuzztone technology and thunderstorm sound effects, the Sound Offs put it all to expert use in 1963 for this atmospheric instrumental.

2. The Desert Rats, Sohonie (Mink)
You finished reading “On the Road” and now you’re determined to have your own road trip into the American Southwest, your own communion with the spirit of American freedom and adventure. Wait until you run out of gas on some godforsaken stretch of Death Valley. Wait until you’re just another picked-over pile of calcified bone on the desert floor. You do whatever you want. I’ll be at home, listening to “Sohonie” instead. Two guitars and a cymbal. That’s all I need.

The Desert Rats were another mystery instrumental group. And, like the Sound Offs, I’d also guess that they recorded “Sohonie” in Los Angeles, circa 1963.

3. Tommy Strange, Purple Desert (Shamarie)
“Purple Desert.” It goes barrelling forward like some runaway train, all demon runs up and down the piano keys, and winds up, upright-piano-style, in some Olde Western Saloon.  Well, now – that’s basically a John Ford movie.

Tommy Strange recorded “Purple Desert” in Fort Worth, Texas, circa 1964. Aside from that, it’s a complete unknown. The flip side is a boozy mid-‘60s country tearjerker.

Posted on 2006/11/20 by Little Danny | Posted in Instrumentals/Surf, Miscellaneous Flotsam | 8 Comments

Bagpipes

Posted on 2006/11/13 by Little Danny

The mechanism of the instrument – a bag, fundamentally, directing air across the pipe’s reed within the instrument, the holes on the pipe allowing precise notes to be played – can be traced to different regions of Europe, Africa, and Asia, but most people naturally associate bagpipes with the military music of the Scottish highlands.

The real miracle of the bagpipes, though, this strange contrivance of tassles, pipes, and the bag, wedged like a pillow under the arm, is that they produce anything, let alone their drones and otherworldly reels of sound.

Its mysteries and precise origins aside, I take it as further evidence of the 1960s as jazz’s creative and commercial zenith, that two unique jazz musicians – Rufus Harley and Duke Payne – were able to transcend the instrument’s popular associations, if for only a few choice releases.

1. Duke Payne, The Bottom (M and M)
Layers of percussion, a vibraphone, a Hammond organ and peals of wah-wah guitar are all here in this dense, reverberating exposition of psychedelic jazz. And there it is, too: the sound of the bagpipes swirling around unmistakeably in the mix. The bagpipe, capable of sustained, uninterrupted drones, is heard to spectacular effect on “The Bottom,” a late ‘60s release on one of Chicago’s finest indie R&B and jazz labels, M and M records. (See Red Saunders Research for an excellent overview and discography of this fascinating label.)

Artee “Duke” Payne is probably best remembered today for his forward-thinking saxophone and flute work with Odell Brown and the Organ-izers, an excellent ‘60s soul-jazz combo (see Larry Grogan’s survey of Odell Brown material here). Payne is also part of what’s great about post-war Chicago’s community of musicians and the proliferation of tiny record labels that serviced them. With plenty of work to go around, it was a community that seemed to encourage the exchange of ideas and a spirit of freewheeling adventure.

As of at least 2005, Duke Payne was still performing and actively playing the bagpipe.

2. Bros. in Co-op, Listen Heah (Bunky)
It starts out its brief life as a straightforward vamp on “Listen Here” – an Eddie Harris composition that’s the essence of hip ‘60s jazz commercialism. With the introduction of the bagpipes, however, “Listen Heah” is transformed – the bagpipes are no less hip, just a completely different kind of hip – and transformed yet again with another set of bagpipes (presumably overdubbed).

The bagpipes we hear are again the handiwork of Duke Payne. Little is otherwise known about the Bros. in Co-op; I would assume that they were Chicago jazz musicians assembled by arranger (and future ‘70s R&B; superstar) Donny Hathaway for a one-off session, circa 1968 or ’69.

3. Rufus Harley, Bagpipe Blues (Atlantic)
Often mistakenly referenced as jazz’s only bagpiper, Philadelphia’s Rufus Harley is, with numerous guest appearances and five albums released between 1966 and 1972, the instrument’s most visible emissary. He’s also, as far as I know, the bagpipe’s true originator as a jazz instrument.

As the story goes, Rufus Harley was already a professional saxophonist when, inspired by the Black Watch pipers at John F. Kennedy’s televised funeral, he decided to have a go at the bagpipes. The bagpipes aren’t really the sort of instrument one just picks up on a whim; it’s to Harley’s credit that by 1966 he’d released one of Atlantic Records’ top-selling jazz albums, and was himself appearing on national television dressed in full Scottish regalia, wringing the hell out of his bagpipes – just like the Black Watch three years earlier. His “Bagpipe Blues,” a jazz march (vaguely reminiscient of Benny Golsen’s “Blues March”), is the title track of his debut album, and it seems appropriate that this was also the album’s lead-off track. Several years of marshalling his energies and here was Rufus Harley, a black jazz musician in a kilt, with bagpipes. It reads like the opening salvo of a creative mind marching into battle against squares, skeptics and snobs.

Rufus Harley passed away in August 2006, a proponent of jazz bagpipes until the very end.

Posted on 2006/11/13 by Little Danny | Posted in Jazz Obscura | 12 Comments

Bay City Rollin’

Posted on 2006/11/06 by Little Danny

(Ed. note: A terrific guest post this week courtesy of O-Dub, well-known to many of you as the proprietor of the one best and longest-running music blogs out there, Soul Sides.)

I don’t remotely profess to have a very deep collection of Bay Area soul/funk 45s. I leave that to my friends like Justin Torres or Matthew Africa. That said, as the place where I spent 16 years living and more importantly, became a DJ, writer and record collector, I do feel an affinity with the soul tradition that came out there, especially given how so much of it flew under the proverbial radar for many years. I pulled out three selections: two recent acquisitions, the other an all-time favorite.

1. Sugar Pie DeSanto: The Whoopee (Brunswick)
No doubt, someone will astutely note: but uh, Brunswick wasn’t a Bay Area label. This is true but DeSanto was most definitely an artist who became associated with the Bay (even if she was born in the BK). Normally, I would have been tempted to post “Git Sum,” a fantastic track she put together for Oakland’s Jasman Records. However, I had never heard “The Whoopee” until recently and it’s another great soul cooker from her. Personally, I really want to see how this dance is done but as she says, we won’t really know how to do it until the Sugar Pie do (with mini-skirt no less). Yowzers.

** I just learned recently that Sugar Pie suffered a devastating loss: her house caught fire and her husband died trying to put it out. Not only has she lost her house but also her life partner. People are in the process of trying to set up a way for donations to get to her. More info available here. **

2. Eugene Blacknell: The Trip (Pts. 1 & 2) (Boola Boola)
The 7″ everyone used to want by Blacknell was “Gettin’ Down” and sure, it’s a good funk 45…”massive breaks,” that sort of thing. But in terms of the go-to 7″ I’d want to use in the middle of a DJ set, I’d grab “The Trip” first, every time. The elements here are superb: gutbucket guitar, a chomping bass, tireless drumming and that bank of horns that pushes the groove on, relentlessly. Did I also mention the “massive breaks” in the middle? The 45 has parts 1 and 2 split in half on the 7″ but I stitched them together to create a more seamless song.

3. Pi-R-Square: Fantasy (Pts 1 & 2) (Wee)
Hands down, not only my favorite Bay Area 7″ but possibly my favorite 45, period. For a long time, it was a Holy Grail single amongst collectors though in recent years, it’s become far less obscure but that hasn’t diminished its singular excellence one bit. I’ve tried to describe it before but it’s difficult to articulate just how sublimely awesome this whole single is. The way it builds, transforms, takes you on this nine minute trip that you never want to get off of.

–O-Dub (Soul Sides)

Posted on 2006/11/06 by Little Danny | Posted in Soul | 20 Comments

Halloween

Posted on 2006/10/30 by Little Danny

One of the great attractions of the 45 rpm record is its populist ideal. Independent labels, bands, even individuals – they all could afford to record and press a 45, no matter the eccentricity of the musical vision. America, after all, had a great precedent for fluke hits, and, even if yours wasn’t the next “Monster Mash,” it could be, at the very least, a vanity to amuse you and your friends – or something to sell at your high school auditorium gigs.

Thanks to low overhead costs and its potential for infinite self-expression, the 45 rpm record was, before the ’70s at least, the principal format for the more uncommercial, unusual, and exotic impulses of the American pop consciousness. Consequently, there are millions of Halloween records. Steering clear of the wacky monster voices, these selections, while not marketed specifically as Halloween fodder, make for a spooky threesome.

1. The Last Word, Sleepy Hollow (Downey)
The Last Word’s update of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is so authoritative, so gloomy, that its three minutes of tremolo guitar and creepy Munsters-style organ makes it easy to forget that the tale was originally set in the 18th Century woodlands of New York’s Westchester County.

The Last Word may have sounded like the real thing, but they weren’t actually a band proper. Rather, they were a group of Las Vegas studio musicians. Their musical competency only adds to the wickedly potent “Sleepy Hollow,” which they pulled from some forsaken corner of their collective psyche in 1966. The Last Word were like so many American ‘60s garage bands in that they did an impeccable job at both emulating the British Invasion sound (gritty R&B groups the Animals and Them, in this case) and simultaneously taking matters into deeper, more demented territory. (See also Overhauling the British Invasion.)

2. Little John and The Monks, Black Winds (Jerden)
Little John and co., to their credit, did not chose an easy lyrical route. Not your typical teenage girl trouble garage band fare, this is what I can only describe as an Appalachian-style murder ballad. A weird, gloomy variant of girl trouble, I suppose, but, still.

Hailing from Blue River, Oregon, Little John and The Monks recorded this droning, wonderfully dark dirge in 1965 for Jerden records, one of the Pacific Northwest’s great rock ‘n’ roll labels of the ‘60s. This was their only record.

3. Albert DeSalvo, Strangler In The Night (Astor)
I don’t know a woman
And yet I crave on.
My mind tells my body,
“Don’t just stand there – GET ONE!”

Yes. YES. The Bugs – the brainiacs behind “Strangler In The Night” – were Boston’s novelty response to the British Invasion, and it was their fractured imaginations which dropped the first person testimonial (or “thoughts, feelings and emotions,” according its sleeve) of putative Boston Strangler Albert DeSalvo into an otherwise unassuming teen-pop-style ballad.

The DeSalvo stand-in comes across like some square-jawed comic book hero unable to prevail against his darker impulses. An unsubstantiated story has it that Dick Levitan, tough-guy reporter for WEEI (Boston’s CBS affiliate), provided the voiceover narration on this 1964 oddball.

** Note: be sure to check out Steven Wintle’s fabulous Horror Blog, where he recently featured my guest post on Creed Taylor. Steven’s site is an effusive, literate, and wonderfully self-effacing take on the popular idea of “Horror.” Not only does he post with a sort of unnerving frequency, but he also features a lot of music. See you on the dark side. – Dan **

Posted on 2006/10/30 by Little Danny | Posted in Garage Bands | 10 Comments

Sunshine, sunshine

Posted on 2006/10/23 by Little Danny

Various soft-lit psychedelic images – incense, forests, clouds, flowers, rain, flowers in the rain, to name a few – got tossed around pretty indiscriminately in the pop music charts for a few precious years, thanks in part to West Coast vocal harmony groups like the Mamas & the Papas and the Association. The vogue for such imagery also suggested the extent to which California had become the mecca of warmth and good feeling by the mid-1960s. Most of all, though, it was sunshine that prevailed as this music’s dominant lyrical focus. Bright, warm, yellow, basically harmless: sunshine was the perfect metaphor for this self-invented Pacific Eden and the perfect summation of its beatified, ultra-commercial version of pop music.

Filled with hip Aquarian accoutrement like chimes, flutes, fuzztone guitars, sitars, tambourine and, of course, soaring and sunny vocal harmonies, this sunshine pop was a form of pop music which seemed to resonate with starry-eyed, suburban adolescents everywhere. Perversely, its easygoing sophistication resonated with an older generation as well, swingers who respected the idea of cultural currency but who might have otherwise been scared away by the more aggressive and increasingly political strains of rock music.

See also this early post for more sunshine.

1. The Gordian Knot, The Year of the Sun (Verve)
San Francisco’s Gordian Knot released a full length psychedelic-pop album (from which this ethereal 45 was taken) that is unfairly regarded with near-universal disdain by enthusiasts of ‘60s psychedelia.

I hear lines like “The rhythm of the summer wind calls me again” and I happily to welcome “The Year of the Sun” into my life, though. You have to learn to feel the flute.

2. Chapter V, The Sun is Green (Verve Folkways)
A fairly obscure release, lucky contemporary listeners wondered, too, what it exactly took to make the sun turn green, and where they could score some.

“The Sun is Green” was the first and best of two psychedelic pop 45’s produced by Chapter V in 1968. They were a vehicle for then-Toronto native (and future country producer and husband of Emmylou Harris) Brian Ahern, but little seem to be otherwise known about Chapter V.

3. The Hard Times, Sad, Sad, Sunshine (World Pacific)
The lyrics are obscured in a blanket of echo and gorgeous harmonies here, but, if nothing else, the title gets the sunshine reference in.

From San Diego, the Hard Times released one fine, eclectic album of folk-rock and psychedelia along with a handful of 45s between 1966 and 1968.

Posted on 2006/10/23 by Little Danny | Posted in Psychedelic/Pop | 10 Comments