1960's comps tend to lean either garage/punk or psychedelic in flavor. Obviously this one makes no secret that it favors the latter. Also, the selections are entirely British, where the best psych was being made. In terms of obscurity, it is fairly mass market, so while it won't blow any minds, it's a decent place to begin exploring the music.
The most important thing to keep in mind with Acid Daze is that unlike Nuggets, Pebbles, Garage Beat '66, Rubble, Back From the Grave, Teenage Shutdown, and the million other comp series out there is that this one was a freebie attached to a British music magazine, Uncut, so the tracklist is more driven by what they can sell rather than just a general passion for the genre. Therefore, while the compilation is quite good, it sometimes veers into areas that a "regular" series would probably shun. Instant Garage, a freebie attached to Mojo, has some of the same issues, however from the garage end of the spectrum. Probably three tracks are included here that are a bit of a stretch for the genre: "Octopus" (Syd Barrett), "Clarence in Wonderland" (Kevin Ayers), and "Never Never Land" (The Pink Fairies). The latter two are more post-psych 1970's recordings, and "Octopus" is a stripped-down psych-rock rejection by one of its founders. I think they placed more emphasis on the man than the music here. I should point out, though, that in all three cases these are great songs, just a little out of their element here.
On the other hand, there are a number of essential tracks for those listeners trying to get beyond Sgt. Pepper's without having to invest in all of Nuggets II. On the shortlist would be: Tomorrow, The Move, Nirvana (the British one, obviously), The Smoke, The Nice, Arthur Brown, and Dantalion's Chariot. On top of this they've included the psychedelic phases of bands that either already had British Invasion cred or would be bigger in the 1970's: T(yrannosaurus) Rex, Spencer Davis, The Hollies, the Small Faces, Status Quo, and Donovan. The tracks from these bands don't capture them at their height, but are great songs nonetheless.
Finally, special mention should go to two songs. First, "Granny Takes a Trip" by the Purple Gang. This is probably the one song here that really had no psych aspirations whatsoever but when you call your band "The Purple Gang" and your song "Granny Takes a Trip", you can probably expect the drug-reference interpreters to jump all over you. But it's far more innocuous: The Purple Gang was named after a reference in the psych classic "Jailhouse Rock" and the song is just about an old woman who likes to travel, all played in old-timely jug-band style. Apparently the compilers missed the point. The second is "Ginza Strip" by the Executives, the one truly "obscure" song on the entire disc. However, with a little strategic digging, interested listeners will discover that this little blop of pop whismy is an early recording by a band featuring Glenn Cornick, who would soon join a band of freaks named after an enterprising agriculturalist and play on their first three albums. It's quite a find, considering that pre-Tull recordings are notoriously rare.
The two-volume Connoisseur Collection project on the career of Ritchie Blackmore from 1963-1984 is a checkered affair. On one hand, they have a number of rare tracks that save the buyer from having to invest in entire albums by the likes of Jack Green or Randy Pie just to hear Ritchie on one song. Same goes for saving time trying to chase down all the early singles from his old bands, like the Outlaws, Savages, and others. On the other hand, both volumes are stuffed with regular album tracks that are flat-out common. I think I picked this up in London in 1997 during my semester abroad, when the whole e-commerce thing hadn't yet made getting British CD's very easy, and YouTube was a high-bandwidth pipe dream. Since the whole Deep Purple family is much better known across the Atlantic, it was a veritable bonanza of awesome stuff I could only have dreamed of listening to in the United States. At the time it was a nice investment, though for the reasons listed above it hasn't aged well, and the running order of the tracks is a little jarring.
Each volume was dreamed up individually. The original plan was for the first volume to cover up to Ritchie's (first) split with Deep Purple, and the second volume would continue the story from Rainbow onward. About one minute after the first volume went to press, I think somebody realized there were going to be some problems, particularly when it came to covering the breadth of Ritchie's pre-Purple work and the paucity of Rainbow material beyond official releases. Let's explore this a little more closely.
First off, a couple key early moments were omitted among all of the Outlaws and Heinz tracks, namely the first-ever Ritchie Blackmore solo single and anything from his work with Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages. Since both are kind of important to any good Ritchie retrospective, the compilers rolled back to 1965 so that both sides of the Ritchie Blackmore Orchestra single ("Getaway"/"Little Brown Jug") could kick things off, followed by a couple appropriately ridiculous numbers ("Honey Hush" and "The Train Kept A-Rollin'") by the Raving Monster Loony Party house band.
Then, not giving much thought to continuity of sound, things abruptly shift from fun and bouncy to deadly serious with the brilliant yet out-of-place guitar movement from the Gemini Suite, a one-off classical/rock hybrid project by Deep Purple (and credited entirely to Jon Lord in the liner notes) backed by the Light Music Society. At the time this hadn't been officially released, so the compilers felt they needed to include this. Now the entire work is easy to find, but this disc does an unusual public service by separating the awesome guitar movement from the horrific organ movement that followed. It's kind of funny because Ritchie and Ian Gillan were not big fans of Jon Lord's classical hybrid experiments, yet easily turned out the best portions of the entire work.
Another instrumental work follows, just called "Bullfrog", an epic three-guitar jam from a shady self-titled album by some outfit called Green Bullfrog. An oddity in the Deep Purple story, it's actually Ritchie and Purple drummer Ian Paice playing under assumed names (which sound like the names of the ghosts in Pac Man) with some friends. Reports of Roger Glover being in on the session are untrue, based on a misstatement by Ritchie that somehow ended up on the cover of the CD booklet. It was Chas Hodges. Ooops.... Anyway, it's the coolest track on the compilation hands down and it's a reworking of a leftover track from the In Rock sessions called "Jam Stew" but the two main parts are reversed here to allow for heavy soloing from Ritchie and two other guitarists (Albert Lee and Big Jim Sullivan) with an organist who might be Matthew Fisher (Procol Harum) since the other keyboard player from those session was Tony Ashton and the solo just isn't his style.
The compilation the whipsaws back to the mighty David "Screaming Lord" Sutch with two tracks from a fantastically awful free-for-all live album called Hands of Jack the Ripper. Although he didn't realize it at the time, Sutch launched the careers of many musicians who bravely supported him on crazy projects like Lord Caesar Sutch and the Roman Empire and other over-the-top stage shows. So around 1971 he re-emerged, sort of like the weird uncle they secretly wished would go away but to whom they are secretly indebted. This yielded a studio album called Lord Sutch and Heavy Friends and the aforementioned live album. The studio album was such a disaster that most of those involved, in particular Jimmy Page, permanently severed their relationships with Sutch. However the Sutch stable was big enough that he brought in more guys in replace them. Oddly enough this would be the last time Nick Simper, the original Deep Purple bassist, and Ritchie would share a stage. As for the recording itself...wow. Ritchie is playing like his hair is on fire (three years before Cal Jam when his hair actually was on fire), but the producers felt the inexplicable need to overdub all sorts of crap, including the most cringe-inducing trombone solo ever, plus the doubling of the drums, bass, and vocals all gets to be a bit too much, even for Sutch.
Things remain weird for one more track called "Hurry to the City" by the oddly-named Randy Pie & Family. Somehow there must have been a Hamburg connection somewhere that inspired Ritchie to contribute guitar to this song. The band claims the legendary German garage band The Rattles as an ancestor, so maybe somebody somewhere knew somebody. The song itself is pretty blah, sort of Foghat-ish, and it's Ritchie's only contribution to the band, so keep that in mind before spending any money on Randy Pie.
The next four tracks are Rainbow songs, and none of them are particularly hard to find. "Still I'm Sad" and "Lady of the Lake" are just regular album tracks. Meanwhile, "Sixteenth Century Greensleeves" and "Man on the Silver Mountain" are extended live versions performed by a different lineup than the studio versions. Ritchie and Ronnie James Dio are present on both, but the live versions sport the high energy rhythm section of Jimmy Bain and Cozy Powell in lieu of Dio's old Elf bandmates, as well as the more versatile Tony Carey in for Mickey Lee Soule, a fine honky-tonk pianist from Elf, but clearly out of his element in Rainbow. I think the compilers realized a little too late in the game that there is far less "rare" Rainbow tracks, so to say this volume is the "Rainbow era" is a little misleading.
Singer Jack Green (ex-Pretty Things and probably a few other outfits) did a very short stint in Rainbow around 1979 which yielded no recordings. However Green was able to convince Ritchie to do a one-song guest appearance on his album, Humanesque, and the song "I Call, No Answer" is the result. Although an uncharacteristically new wave recording involving Ritchie, it is one of the true gems of this collection, and very hard to find on disc anywhere else.
Appropriately enough, we get a little bonus Deep Purple at the end, the ten-minute jam track "Son of Alerik", recording during the windup to the release of Perfect Strangers and the launch of the reunion era. It's probably as good as any place to wrap things up. "Son of Alerik" has since become a standard bonus track on re-releases of Perfect Strangers alongside old standby "Not Responsible".
Finally, it's come to my attention that some corners were cut to squish the old 2 LP version of this collection into a single CD. Volume 1 suffered a bit more, slashing interviews and cutting the ends off songs, but there was some tinkering with this one as well. In this case the last track, "Like a Bird Without Feathers", an old Outlaws track performed under a pseudonym, was cut, as well as a "Guitar Greats" interview track. While the missing song is probably not essential listening (you can judge for yourself), it's still annoying that they CD version delivers less than the LP.
Points of Departure:
Although this compilation isn't commercially available, and you shouldn't be paying more than $10 for a used copy in this day and age, there are some good "jumping off" points depending on what songs you like most. The easiest ones are the two Rainbow albums, Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow (1975), and Long Live Rock and Roll (1978), though you would end up missing out of their best, Rising (1976). The live tracks on this compilation are not the ones from On Stage (1977), but they sound pretty similar and you won't be missing out too badly if you grab this one. The Deep Purple stuff here is also easy to get for cheap, especially if you don't mind CD's, which in this crazy world have somehow become cheaper than downloads! For the more adventurous, you can do worse than to locate the old Sutch recordings, which enjoy a strong underground following thanks to the connection to the producer, the mysterious and weird Joe Meek. However, the 1970's stuff, though sloppier, is easier to find, probably because he managed to get folks like Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, and Keith Moon to participate. Unfortunately, much of the early pre-Purple session work of Ritchie's is on now-out-of-print compilations being sold at extortion levels, so for now, just settle for the YouTube stuff various folks have uploaded. Same goes for Green Bullfrog, which in many ways was Ritchie's "last" session work, a favor to his old producer, Derek Lawrence. As for Randy Pie and Jack Green, I wouldn't really bother with their albums since Ritchie's involvement was so minimal with these artists. Finally, of course, there is Ritchie Blackmore: Rock Profile, Vol. 1, which is more heavy on the early cuts and Deep Purple tracks, stopping at 1974.
At the rate I'm burning through the volumes here, Garage Beat '66 will be completely covered by the end of the year. Not bad for a 7-volume affair. It was impressive enough that they released the first five volumes, encompassing 100 songs, in rapid fire fashion, so I was surprised to see that a couple years later Sundazed threw for two more volumes.
The main problem with the last three or so volumes is that the pool of top-quality of music was largely exhausted by the first four volumes. While never content to limit themselves to 1966, the compilers started drifting away from the gritter "true" garage end of the music spectrum. Here in volume 6, the set list is dominated by ham-fisted psych like "Psychedelic Siren" and "Lights" (both of which shout color names) or the weaker parts of the repertoire of better-known acts, stuff like "Advise and Consent" by the Music Machine and a super-weird title track number from Things to Come. But, hey, the Vejtables are back for two tracks, so things aren't all that bad!
So even though the comp overall is drowning in second-rate psych (it even manages to overlap with it's polar-opposite series, Psychedelic Experience,for one track), it hasn't lost its sense of fun. I mean it's sincerely funny to see how many renditions of "Who Do You Love" you can stick together and the Druids of Stonehenge kill it on the Kinks quasi-original "Bald Headed Woman". All in all, Garage Beat '66 is seven volumes well worth your time (but get volume 2 first).
When a CD is only three bucks, you have to suspect that it's not about charity. Sure enough this is a sampler of the latest stuff for sale, to get you to buy more stuff at a much higher price point. I think the idea here was to do an ongoing series, like the Punk-O-Rama extensive series of samplers. However, they must have gotten tired after this one and given up on the project.
Since "the blues" are defined quite broadly by this collection, not every song will be to everyone's taste. While the purists will probably be disappointed that their interests are only represented by Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf, those who like some diversity will likely welcome the six tracks from female performers and the closer by Indigenous, while not the most bluesy of songs, is a Native American band. The songs by Kim Wilson and Rick Holmstrom show the continuing dynamic nature of the blues, mixing up traditional and alternative instrumentation. Since the sampler is trying to spotlight a lot of new music, most of the songs sport sleek modern production, polished horn sections, and the like. However there must have been some retrospective material included since the two big name blues guys were 20+ years in the grave when this was released!
The fourth volume of Island's 40th anniversary series is probably the most accessible to classic rock fans. In most cases all of the artists should be familiar, though in some cases the song choices are unusual. For almost all of the artists represented here I have built them further into my collection.
Traffic and John Martyn showed up on volume 3 (the folk collection, even though the songs identify better as acoustic rock), although here their songs are much heavier. We also get a double dose of Traffic from the pre- and post-Blind Faith era. The Jethro Tull track, a cover of "Cat's Squirrel" from their first album, is unusual in that I don't believe Ian Anderson performs on it. In fact it sounds closer to Black Sabbath than the kind of music Tull would be producing a couple years down the road. After that is a slightly edited "In the Court of the Crimson King" which segues neatly into a live version of Free's "Mr. Big". The next two tracks are among the most obscure: Spooky Tooth's "Better By You, Better Than Me" (which may be more familiar in the form of Judas Priest's cover version), and Heavy Jelly's "I Keep Singing That Same Old Song". In fact, the Heavy Jelly track is truly bizarre in that it's the only thing the band ever did. It's an interesting song, but very weird to see it here. Traffic's second song closes the first half of the album.
The second half of the collection is more glam-oriented. John Martyn takes things in a new direction even though his song doesn't scream glam. The Roxy Music family (Brian Eno and Bryan Ferry solo, then together) move in for a few tracks, which is where the real sound shift occurs. The last songs leave us in a very different place than the beginning of the album, with songs from Robert Palmer (long before he was addicted to love), John Cale (channeling Elvis - no joke!), and Bad Company.
Like some other compilations in my life, this came around at a good time. Before this fell into my hands, the only song replicated by my existing collection was "Cat's Squirrel". Since then I've used many of the songs as a springboard to collecting more from these artists. The only artists here that show up uniquely here still are Spooky Tooth, Heavy Jelly (of course), Bryan Ferry, Brian Eno, Robert Palmer, and John Cale. As you can see, I've still got some work to do!
The final disc of the impressive Nuggets II box set is probably the most diverse, with a mere 15 of the 28 tracks coming from British groups. Also represented here (some their only appearance in the whole set) are Australia (The Atlantics), Brazil (Os Mutantes), Canada (The Ugly Ducklings), Iceland (Thor's Hammer), Ireland (The Wheels), Japan (The Mops), and Uruguay (Los Shakers). New Zealand, the Netherlands, and (West) Germany each have two spots, demonstrating their relatively hip scenes outside the UK. All of the non-British bands except for the brilliantly weird Os Mutantes are not well-known outside of their own countries. Among the Brits, a few of the bands should be familiar to casual fans, if not because of their own accomplishments (The Pretty Things, The Creation, The Small Faces), then what they contributed to later (The Birds through Ronnie Wood, The Fairies through John "Twink" Alder, Dantalion's Chariot through Andy Summers and The Acid Gallery through Roy Wood). A few of the oddballs like Winston's Fumbs and Tymon have minor but direct links to an array of later groups ranging from Yes to the Clash.
One bit of methodology the second Nuggets uses is to include any country outside the US, meaning Canada is here when most series prefer to lump our northern neighbors with the similar sounding US scene. Generally the American material from 1965 to 1968 trends a little grittier, heavily influenced by the Yardbirds and early Kinks, while Europe's various scenes trends more fanciful, ranging from psych-pop to freakbeat. The rest of the world is a mixed bag. Some absorb their local sounds and merge them into pop, like Os Mutantes. Some ape the mop-top era Beatles (Los Shakers). Others fall more in line with the American sound, especially New Zealand and somewhat Australia. At least two songs here ("Rosalyn" and "Get Yourself Home") are older than the other songs and reflect a British Invasion mentality than the usual "psych era" stuff that's the backbone of the entire series.
Listeners should resist the temptation to listen to the whole box set from Disc 1 Track 1, because, as good as the music is, you will likely be too tired to fully appreciate the last disc. It has a lot to offer and I'm glad I had the chance to give it a little quality time today!
It's another chapter in my helter-skelter coverage of the Garage Beat '66 series. This was the last volume released in the series, released along with the sixth volume a couple years after the bulk of the series was released. It reverses the trend the was evident from the fourth volume onward of adding more psych to the mix. Every track here is from either 1966 or 1967 except for "I'm a King Bee", the sole representative from 1965. Aside from a few psych ruffles by the more familiar bands, the "strictly garage" mentality has returned, but with considerably more obscure bands. In fact, I've heard of very few of them. I think as Sundazed was reaching the exhaustion point of the series, they needed to turn to increasingly less known outfits to fill out the collection. This is fine; I like obscurity on these comps.
Just the way they were released I picked these up on an Amoeba run, a completely unexpected find. I had just assumed they were going to stop with the fifth volume. At the time I had hoped this would turn into a ridiculously long-running series (like Pebbles or something), but I think they were wise to wrap up at this point.
Yep, I'm an idiot. And you may be one too! If you know as much about classical music as I do, you should check this out. This disc consists 99 snippets from Albioni to Wagner.
The Motown sound isn't particularly core to my music library, but the influence is strong and, dang it, I like the Funk Brothers. This compilation, one of those freebies glued on to British music magazines, is substantially different from the "classic years" Motown compilation I also have in my library. Generally this one covers a later period for the label, with most of the tracks being recorded after 1965, while the other one barely scratches the 1970's. Needless to say this collection is not nearly as essential, but if you getting bored of the classic era, this offers a nice alternative. Most are comfortably in the "Motown" sound, although there are a couple outliers (Dazz Band, Teena Marie). Overall, the songs have a little more edgy of feel, as was the way with a lot of the music of the period.
It's sad to think that for a label billed as the "World's Greatest" it has experienced such a wretched ending. Unfortunately, as with many labels big and small, it has been relegated to a subsidiary entity handed off among behemoths like PolyGram, Universal, and Capitol. These days outside of indie rock label identity is fairly meaningless.
The once mighty Mojo Music Guide series was flailing by the time volume 4 was released and, to nobody's surprise, the series wrapped after this. The thing to remember with the series is that they were all free discs taped to fancy British music magazines, all trying to woo readers away from rivals Uncut and Q and probably a bunch of others I can't think of. Therefore, the real purpose behind each volume was to sell something, not provide a rich and comprehensive listening experience. They got away with achieving both on the first two entries, Instant Garage and The Roots of Hip-Hop, mainly because those came out at a time when it was easy to make connections to newer material or fresh new compilations fans would be likely to buy upon hearing those volumes. Those volumes were loaded to capacity. Volume 3, Raw Soul, failed to capture my interest (mainly because I know zilch about soul), but this volume did capture it...and left me disappointed. The songs are good and hit a lot of the standards, but overall it just feels like a thin offering, only about half the length of its predecessors. Additionally it seemed hung up on surface-level material, while the others weren't afraid to dig a little deeper. Sure it's great that these pillars of the blues are getting representation, but dang it, I want more! As I was bemoaning earlier, I am in dire need of more real blues material in my collection. Thank God for public libraries.
If you like your 1960's more garage-flavored that psych-flavored, the Garage Beat '66 series from Sundazed is a good series to move on to after you've finished off Nuggets. This particular volume gets a lot of flak for making more psychedelic concessions than its four predecessors, but there's still plenty of fun stuff to go around. I certainly don't see it as the worst of the bunch; that's like listening to the first five Beatles albums and proclaiming Help! to be their worst because after three hours of intensive Beatles listening you're getting worn out. On the other hand, Sundazed was already 80 songs along in the series by the release of the fifth volume, so maybe the pool of upper-mid-level garage was running low.
A number of the bands on here are playing their "secondary" hits, particularly the Lemon Drops and the Zakary Thaks. I think the only Nuggets crossover is "Optical Sound" by the Human Expression. There doesn't seem to be a strong geographical bent to the compilation, though a bunch are from California and Chicago. Maybe I'll get around to a more detailed analysis, but I'm too busy right now!
Sundazed would go out to squeak out two more volumes a couple years later, both with substantial psych content and heightened obscurity, then realize that Garage Beat '66 had finally run its course. But don't cry, there are many more compilations out there to help you along in your exploration of the era.
After an extended absence, the mighty Nuggets return! Anyone needing a rock and roll education (or maybe reprogramming to remove all traces of Bieber) would do well to start here. Well, in all fairness, start with what I call the Big Six of the British Invasion (The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, The Kinks, The Animals, The Who) and spend quality time digesting their 1960's output, from Merseybeat classics to early rock operas like Tommy and Arthur. If you are finding the psych-era stuff by those bands appealing, this is your next logical step. A few of the bands here are just a shade below in profile (Small Faces, The Creation and The Pretty Things, the latter two both closely linked to the Kinks and all cozy to the Rolling Stones) and the rest are more "buried treasure" but nothing too obscure, at least not the bands featured here that hail from the UK, Australia, New Zealand, or Canada. Then you can decide from there if you want to go into progressive stuff (Yes, Pink Floyd) or hard rock (Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple) and work on your 1970's education. If you make it to the 1980's I'll have to turn you over to somebody else for guidance.
As is the case with the third disc, a number of the bands featured here have connections to better known artists, usually in the 1970's. Here's a quick rundown:
The Creation is largely a force unto itself, but Ron Wood would log a little time in the band before ultimately joining the Rolling Stones. An early member, John Dalton, would later join the Kinks. Fire made a huge splash with the single included here. Paul McCartney apparently had some input on the final mix, while Tony Clarke, later producer for the Moody Blues, is credited as producer. However, Fire didn't do much of anything after this song. The Move and The Idle Race would eventually coalesce to form the original Electric Light Orchestra in 1970. The Smoke, The Eyes, and The Sorrows are all UK bands that somehow managed not to intermingle with their colleagues or form other big-name bands. Tomorrow was a short-lived but stacked band that featured Twink (Pretty Things, Pink Fairies) and Steve Howe (Yes, Asia). The Action served as the launching pad for Reg King's solo career, though the other King (Alan) would later form the band Ace. The Easybeats, though very well-known themselves, would contribute two producers to the early albums of AC/DC. The La De Das were from New Zealand, which had a more aggressive-sounding scene than the UK.
The Fleur de Lys was surrounded by high-profile figures of the era such as Jimmy Page, Chas Chandler, and Jimi Hendrix, but two of the actual band members, Gordon Haskell and Pete Sears, would later appear in King Crimson and Jefferson Starship, respectively. The Motions, one of a handful of Dutch bands included here, would lose band members to Golden Earring and Shocking Blue. The Mickey Finn was the band supporting one Mickey Finn, who later joined the glam movement (Heavy Metal Kids) and reverted to his given name, Mickey Waller.
Q65 The Pretty Things are somewhat well known to casual fans of the genre, though they got no respect for anything they were doing at the time. Guitarist Dick Taylor, an early bassist for the Rolling Stones, helped launch Hawkwind in 1969. (The) Marmalade is still around, but with no original members. There are an extensive list of former members over the nearly 50-year lifespan of the band. The Koobas lost a latter-day drummer to an early version of Yes. The Mockingbirds' Graham Gouldman is better recognized for his songwriting, most notably for the Yardbirds. The Haunted represent Canada here. Canada's garage scene was more American sounding than the other countries represented here. Small Faces were extremely well connected to numerous other groups: The Faces, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Humble Pie, etc. etc. and so forth! Los Bravos were from Spain (geographically isolated - so sad). The Thoughts' Peter Beckett would re-locate to L.A. and play with Player and the Little River Band. Apparently having a single written by Ray Davies doesn't mean instant fame. The Masters Apprentices were quite big in Australia, but not well known elsewhere. Oddly enough they too contributed to the history of the Little River Band. We All Together was from Peru and I believe their song is the chronologically last song of the entire box set (I guess nobody told them the psychedelic era had ended three years earlier). Kaleidoscope featured Daltrey....Peter Daltrey. Their first album was called Tangerine Dream, which has no relation to the band of the same name. What tricksters! The Tages were from Sweden, another geographic outlier.
To celebrate their 40th anniversary back in 1999, Island Records released a five-disc series chronicling their progression from Jamaica to all around the world. The third and fourth discs made it to me as freebies during my college radio days, while I still have yet to hear the others. To quickly summarize, disc 1 is first-wave ska, 2 is British R&B, 3 is folk/acoustic rock, 4 is psych and glam rock, and the last disc is reggae.
"Acoustic Waves" is a bit misleading as a subtitle. The disc is primarily folk rock bands that aren't necessarily acoustic (Fairport Convention, Incredible String Band), or rock artists doing the acoustic thing (Traffic, Murray Head, Cat Stevens). Of course there are a few genuine folkies thrown in for good measure (Nick Drake, Sutherland Brothers). Toward the end of the collection, the folk rock movement is seen clearly moving toward a greater acoustic emphasis, emphasized by Amazing Blondel and the "pure" Chieftains, who close out the compilation.
Unlike the fourth volume, this compilation features a lot of artists that are either unknown only passingly familiar to American audiences, with the exceptions perhaps of Traffic and Cat Stevens. Fairport Convention, whose family tree dominates this collection, was only so-so popular across the Atlantic. With a little scratching, though, it's easy to tell these are not obscure artists. Murray Head, for those who missed him as Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar (the original soundtrack recording), would have a big hit in the 1980's with "One Night In Bangkok". Renaissance featured former Yardbirds frontman Keith Relf on vocals. Sandy Denny (who appears both as a part of Fairport and solo here) sang alongside Robert Plant on Led Zeppelin's "Battle of Evermore".
This is another strong entry in the impressive Garage Beat '66 series, a seven-volume series produced by retro-maestros Sundazed. Unlike the other compilations reviewed here (well some of them anyway), this series doesn't dabble too much in psych, leaning more toward the bands sporting strong Kinks and Yardbirds qualities, with some dashes of surf thrown in for good measure. Although the Beatles were undeniably large and in charge during this period, only one of the songs openly apes their style ("Don't Try Your Luck" by the Quarrymen, and don't ask me how they were able to get away with that name). It should be noted that this isn't necessarily the earliest artifacts of garage music which predate the British Invasion and tend to draw more from the more rumbly aspects of leathery 1950's bands.
There is one crossover with Nuggets, the opening track "1-2-5", presented here with a somewhat different mix (I think this is mono and Nuggets was stereo?). I know that the novelty "Asparagus Horror Stories" was on one of the Pebbles series. The Groupies had a different track on Nuggets. The one here is a lot more energetic though seems raw to the point of unfinished (it just sort of trails off).
Future volumes of this series would ratchet up the psych element, which is kind of unfortunate as the selections lose their distinctiveness among other competing compilations. As for this volume, if you like weird, make sure you reach the final track, "Ghost Power" by the Cords. Whereas some bands called themselves "Monks", these guys were actual monks! Judging from the sound they produce, I think somebody spiked their communion wine with 4Loco.
This is a good overview of Handel. You get your Water Music, your Fireworks, and of course your Messiah in one convenient double-disc set. Even a classical music neophyte like me can recognize the key parts of these pieces. Also included are the Largo from "Xerxes", The Harmonious Blacksmith, and the not-so-grosso Concerto Grosso #8.
I recently went to the San Francisco Symphony with my mother to see one of their "Spirit" and "Soul" sets of the music of the Bach family, which got me to thinking about baroque music. If I could only pick a single composer from that era it would probably be Bach (the elder), but Handel currently would be a close second. There's just too much iconic stuff here to ignore! However I think I'm favoring the Classical period more. Baroque is easier to wrap my brain around, but I find it a little stiff. Romantic era stuff is certainly exciting but I get lost in it, and not always in a good way. Modern is still mostly the undiscovered country.
I've got a book on classical music lined up in my reading queue and will post some thoughts on that later, probably around July or so. A little appreciation couldn't hurt this "most difficult" of Western artforms to grasp (Jacques Barzun, I think?).
The Garage Beat series has been whispered about on these pages, but here we finally have a profile of one entry from the series. First, some overall series thoughts. This is primarily an American "garage" series, and before you say "duh, the title" it should be noted there is some psych material, more prevalent on the later volumes. Also, the series is not a profile of the year 1966, but if you average out the dates, you should end up somewhere in the summer of the year of Revolver and Pet Sounds. Although some tracks appear on other comps, the series appears to consciously avoid any repetition with Nuggets. Finally, in spite of the subtitles, the discs are not themed, so don't prepare yourself for a "sad" compilation in this particular case.
Volume 3 is a solid entry in the series. There is very little psych featured, although they definitely pull a fake-out on the opening track, The Purple Underground's "Count Back", a proto-Blue Cheer type of track. Some band names should sound familiar to Nuggets aficionados: The Brogues and The Music Machine are here with different tracks. Some other highlights include one of the finest renditions of "Who Do You Love" that will have you saying "George Thorough-what?" and gruff bluesy stuff like "Revenge" which channels the best know Chopin riff of all time (hint: funerals). For those who want sad stuff (come on, it's "Feeling Zero" after all), "There She Goes" will leave you with a tear in your eye if you've ever been on the wrong end of a messy breakup.
I haven't been able to officially order the series from best to worst, but this hit somewhere in the upper part of the middle of the pack. If you have to decide on just one, go with the second volume, but this certainly isn't a bad place to start.
Nuggets was and still is the "gold standard" of the 1960's garage/psych scene. From the original Nuggets compilation (disc 1 of this box set), a veritable horde of followers emerged, each trying to outdo the others in the obscurity department. Nuggets led to Pebbles, Pebbles to Gravel, Gravel to Rubble, and Rubble to Trash and everything in-between.
The three additional discs of Nuggets emerged with the box set in 1998 and clearly show the influence of the rival comps more than the original Nuggets did. The original Nuggets, which was groundbreaking in the early 1970's, capturing a scene that may have otherwise slipped away, had been somewhat co-opted by the more comfortable embrace of Time-Life series retrospectives and other big-picture 1960's compilations. This is not to say it's no good anymore, but most the tracks should be familiar to those who enjoy the music of the era. Disc 2 begins with a karate chop courtesy of the Music Machine, followed up by a swift kick to the groin by the Del-Vetts, neither of which received their invitation to the original Nuggets ball. Although there are still some familiar faces (or at least their songs) in the form of the Strawberry Alarm Clock, The Turtles and Paul Revere & the Raiders, this disc is full of Pebbles-grade misfits like the Sonics, the Seeds, the Litter and the Elastik Band.
Discs 3 and 4 use a similar approach, with plenty of bad-ass angry bands playing alongside their folkier counterparts in a way that only the 1960's could capture, before the ranks permanently broke in the following decade. One major difference between this first Nuggets box set and Nuggets II, which covers the rest of the world, is that many/most of the artists here are pretty much in the peak of their careers (some of which were very brief careers indeed), whereas Nuggets II artists tend to sport a number of "before they were famous" types, like Marc Bolan, Jeff Lynne, and half of the membership of Yes.
If you don't have these box sets and you like this kind of music, get them!!! They are the gateway to a lifetime of listening enjoyment in the form of grittier and more obscure gems from the golden age of rock. For extra credit, there are a couple "local" Nuggets for San Francisco and Los Angeles that largely avoid duplication with other Nugget experiences, while the Children of Nuggets is, as advertised, from a later time and may not appeal so much, though your New Wave friends may take an interest.
Well, that's it for the Dose compilations. If there are more than the four you have seen here, you should let me know right away! Lyte is the oddball of the bunch, probably because the fine folks at Arf Arf Records were trying to differentiate it from its companion, An Overdose of Heavy Psych. The following two compilations, Hard and Wylde, tend to favor tracks more at home on the Heavy comp than the Lyte one. Of course Lyte doesn't mean "boring" - there is plenty of adventurous tracks featured here, some of them downright weird, and in the spirit of these series, lots of obscurity to go around, just without the cranked-up fuzz.
As always, I like seeing the geography behind the scene. I've also included some albums by these bands, which is always interesting as many of these groups were barely able to release just one single, let alone an entire album!
Michigan: The Misty Wizards (Detroit), Chris Carpenter (Detroit),
Illinois: The Capes of Good Hope (Chicago)
Massachusetts: The Freeborne (Boston), Masada,
California: The Id (San Diego), The Truth (Los Angeles), The Ballroom (Los Angeles), Teddy and His Patches (San Jose),
New York: The Tea Company (NYC), The Gurus (NYC), Childe Harold (NYC), The Crescent Six, White Room
Wisconsin: The Picture (Milwaukee)
Canada: The Mongrels (Winnepeg)
Arizona: The Wild Flowers (Phoenix)
Nevada: J.K. & Co. (Las Vegas)
Pennsylvania: The Chimps (a.k.a. The Thomas A. Electric Band)
No Clue: The Attic Sound, The Fourth Way, The Rock Revival
Albums:
The Freeborne: Peak Impressions (1968)
The Id: The Inner Sounds of the Id (1967)
The Tea Company: Come and Have Some Tea With... (1968)
The Chimps: Monkeys A-Go-Go (1967)
J.K. & Co.: Suddenly One Summer (1968)
I'm not going to lie. Alabama wasn't exactly ground-zero for the 1960's garage/psych scene. In fact, looking back on the other comps here, no band hailed from Alabama, and about the closest we ever get to Alabama is Florida and Arkansas. Yet, if you are willing to dial up the obscurity-meter a bit, there is plenty to discover in America's first (alphabetically) state.
Although part of a 19-volume series, none of the bands here have appeared on any other compilation I own except for The In, who scored a spot in the Garage Beat '66 series. While the whole "let's focus on a single state" thing is admirable, the series has taken some flak for being low-budget. I'm sure a lot of this is due to the fact the bands and their source material was fairly scratchy to begin with, but some of the transfers have left a lot to be desired (e.g. CD skip sounds have been reported on some volumes). Also this disc has a big error on it, with one song being repeated twice. I have since located the real track online and dutifully restored it to its rightful place. Thank me later.
Finally, the name "Psychedelic States" is misleading, as this series takes a Nuggets-esque approach of including a lot of pre-psych garage/punk material (sometimes even reaching back to 1965). It's not that I don't think they belong together, but it's generally not a good idea to use the word "psychedelic" to cover both of the sub-genres. Of course, that would rob the series of its snazzy pseudo-alliterative title, but I leave that to the marketing team to puzzle out.
Another Dose of psych! We've been through Hard and Wylde, so why the heck not explore Heavy? I believe this was the second of the four volumes, released in tandem with the yet-to-appear-here A Heavy Dose of Lyte Psych. The fuzz is cranked and applied to just about every instrument except the drums (which I'm sure they would have fuzzed if they knew how!). For some reason this comp was the hardest of the four for me to track down, but I had a friend score this from Amoeba in Hollywood, where it was readily available.
As I seem to love doing with these compilations, here's what I was able to figure out about the artists included here. Two of them are pretty much wild guesses. Unlike the Wylde compilation, which seemed to draw mostly A-sides, this collection favors the B-sides strongly. A major reason for this is many of the bands, in valiant attempts to hit the big time, elected to cover a major song (e.g. Rolling Stones) and put it on the A-side. The last six tracks, variously credited to the "Firebirds" or "31 Flavors" are quite different in nature, more proto-doom metal than psych, performed by anonymous session musicians.
The Orange Wedge - Baltimore, MD - "From the Womb to the Tomb" (1968) - L.S.P. *B side The Quiet Jungle - Toronto, Canada - "Everything" (1967) - Mark/Taylor *B side Twentieth Century Zoo - Phoenix, AZ - "You Don't Remember" (1967) - Farley/Sutko *B side The Fumin' Humins - Massachusetts - "Relative Distance" (1967) - Cardoza *B side Powered By Love - Victorville, CA - "Powered By Love" (1967) - Guy Crystal Rain - Wisconsin - "You and Me" (1969) - Moan ESB - Hollywood, CA - "Mushroom People" (1967) - Burke/Caldwell/Fortunato/Lagana/Zinner *B side The Colder Children - Long Island, NY - "Memories" (1968) - Felton *B side The Kollection - Miami, FL - "Savage Lost" (1967) - Chimelis/Rissoff Kindred Spirit - Pennsylvania - "Blue Avenue" (1969) - Ulaky *B side Blu-Erebus - North Carolina - "Plastic Year" (1968) - Deatherage/Evans *B side The Shadows of Time - Boston, MA - "Search Your Soul" (1969) - Chase Graf Zepplin - Illinois - "You're In My Mind" (1968) - Blumenthal Kiriae Crucible - Wisconsin - "Salem Witch Trial" (1968) - Edland/Erickson The Boston Tea Party -Burbank, CA - "My Daze" (1967) - Miko/Rich/Travis Paraphernalia - New York? - "Watch Out" (1968) - Serio/Zannini *B side I.R.A. - Los Angeles? - "Dooley Vs. the Ferris Wheel" (1968) - Clifford The Loose Enz - Pennsylvania - "Easy Rider" (1968) - Barshinger *B side Glass Sun - Michigan - "Silence of the Morning" (1971) - Roll *B side The Firebirds - Los Angeles, CA - "Reflections" "No Tomorrows" "Gypsy Fire" "Free Bass/Fuzz/Drums" (1969) - *album tracks
