Pebbles, volume 3 aka "The Acid Gallery" (1979) - BFD Records
Hello Friends,
Tiki T. and I have recently started collecting the Pebbles LP series courtesy of the BFD & AIP Record labels. Awesome compilation records, first released in the late 70's, subtitled as "Artyfacts from the First Punk Era".
They're a good companion to the more popular NUGGETS series-- records filled with 2 or 3 minute punk masterpieces mostly from the years of 1966 thru 1969. Bands consisting of pimply-faced kids in basements and garages scattered throughout the country. Some bands (and band members) would go on to bigger and better things, but most would only end up playing local teen centers, VFW Halls, dive bars and local college radio stations. Only a few would be fortunate enough to open for a touring national act like Herman's Hermits, The Jefferson Airplane or The Animals. A handful would be fortunate to record a 7" or two and then call it a day fading off into rock & roll obscurity.
One-Hit and No-Hit Wonders. Footnotes in the Rock & Roll History Books.
Some of the greatest rock and roll songs ever written may have only been heard by a handful of ears. These records provide a time capsule into an honest and less-cynical past. Behind every band, there's a story; some are triumphant; some are tragic; many are uneventful... but who doesn't love a good rock & roll story?
Tonight we've got the third Pebbles LP on the turntable, also known as "The Acid Gallery". Eighteen tracks that are out there! Waaaaay out there! Enjoy!
Side One
1. "Diamond Mine" - Dave Diamond & the Higher Elevation. Dave Diamond was a rock DJ hailing from South Dakota who made his mark in the late 60's playing records by then burgeoning psychedelic bands. (He was the first DJ to play "Light My Fire" by The Doors!) This spoken word psychedelic poem sounds a bit muddled and doesn't really make a whole lot of sense but it kicks the record off in quite the trippy fashion! (Dave Diamond passed away in May of last year! RIP Dave! We hardly knew ye!)
2. "Suzy Creamcheese" - Teddy & His Patches. Great acid punk from San Jose garage band doing their interpretation of Frank Zappa & the Mothers.
3. "Suicidal Flowers" - Crystal Chandelier. Awesome fuzztone on this Doors-inspired song courtesy of a little known garage band from either Texas or Providence, RI.
4. "Swami" - William Penn V. Fucking fantastic San Francisco British Invasion-influenced acid rock. Opened up for the likes of Jefferson Airplane, Them & Paul Revere and the Raiders. Mickey Hart played drums with them for a while before joining The Grateful Dead. They were supposedly about to sign a record deal with Fantasy Records before disbanding and becoming another rock & roll footnote!
5. "I'm Allergic to Flowers" - Jefferson Handkerchief. What a band name! We don't know a thing about the Jefferson Handkerchief except that they released this one novelty single in 1967 in order to poke holes in the whole "Flower Power" movement!
6. bonus track "Prana (excerpt)" - Unfolding.
7. "Flight Reaction" - The Calico Wall. Psychedelic garage punk from Minnesota band! Great trippy & paranoid song about fear of flying... Chorus: "And I swear I'll never fly again!"
8. "Loose Lip Sync Ship" - The Hogs. Weird tune, heavily influenced by Zappa. Starts out as a great garage instrumental, then moves into a druggy doo-wop spoken word section, before winding up as an abstract space jazz hymn! Fun Fact: The Hogs were better known as The Chocolate Watchband!
9. "The Reality of (Air) Fried Borsk" - The Driving Stupid. More whacked-out psychedelic garage rock, this time from the state of New Jersey. The acoustic stomp-blues part is fine, but the screeching, screaming vocals seem to be a little overboard! This band's biggest "hit" was called "Horror Asparagus Stories", included on Side Two! Oh boy!
Side Two
1. "I'm Five Years Ahead of My Time" - The Third Bardo. Releasing just one single in their short career, New York's The Third Bardo were certainly about quality and not quantity with this killer psychedelic classic! We're hearing more than a little Roky Erickson on this one!
2. "Voices Green and Purple" - The Bees. West Coast acid rock. This time hailing from Los Angeles. Not much else is known about The Bees.
3. "Spider and The Fly" - The Monocles. This is the sound of good clean-cut neighborhood kids from Colorado forming a garage band and then discovering drugs! Yowsa!
4. "Let's Take a Trip" - Godfrey. L.A. Disc Jockey Godfrey takes on this Kim Fowley classic. Sounds a little bit square compared to the original which was the original ode to psychedelics!
5. "Faces" - T.C. Atlantic. Minneapolis in the house! Decent garage band that really never made it out of their home state of Minnesota. Nice fuzzy guitars and snaky vocals!
6. "Soggy Cereal" - Mike Condello. Oh boy.
7. "Dom Kallar Oss Mods" - The Lea Riders Group. Fantastic garage rock straight from Stockholm, Sweden and doing it up right! This was the title track of the 1968 Swedish documentary about streetwise Stockholm teenagers, "They Call Us Misfits".
8. "Horror Asparagus Stories" - The Driving Stupid. "My father was a big ol' toad / He lived in a hole in the middle of the road"... it seems this collection is leaning a little too much to the Dr. Demento side of things!
9. "Like a Dribbling Fram" - Races Marbles. Oh boy, Bob Dylan is turning in his grave! (and he's not even dead yet!) Canadian band with their take on Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" that sounds like an 1960's Weird Al on psilocybin.
And "Weird" would be the best way to describe much of this record! But, like we always say, "Weird is good", friends, and there's plenty of weirdos on Pebbles volume 3!
RATING: 3.5 commie cereal, soggy cereal, they're one in the same out of 5
Seems like just yesterday we got rid of our 2016 New Year's hangover!
But the last track is one of the greatest, end-of-the night drinking ballads, "Show Me The Way To Go Home". It's the ultimate You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here exit music:
