Wallace and Ladmo Show - "Soggy Cereal" (1970)

Hello Friends,

We first heard this song on the Pebbles: Volume 3 - The Acid Gallery LP as performed by a cat named Mike Condello.

A little further research showed that Mike Condello was the musical director on a kid's show out of Phoenix, Arizona called "The Wallace and Ladmo Show".   On the air from 1954 to 1989, it remains the one of the longest running children's shows in U.S. Television history.  We watched a few clips and boy-oh-boy did it look weird!  

Then, holy smokes, we stumbled upon this clip here and its Commadore Condello's Salt River Navy Band performing what song?  You guessed it, "Soggy Cereal", in all its propagandist glory!  Yowsas!

On a much sadder note friends, Mike Condello, who suffered from lifelong depression, took his own life in 1995!

Bummer!

Pebbles volume 3: The Acid Gallery

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

Savoy Brown are just OK...

Savoy Brown - "Looking In" (1970) - Parrot Records

Hello Friends,

We had high, high hopes for this one kids.  Just look at that album cover!

We were hoping for some dark, gloomy, psychedelic blues maybe like a British Blue Cheer or a bluesier Black Sabbath, but what we get instead sounds more akin to a second rate Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac or a less interesting version of Ten Years After.

Straightforward blues rock boogie helmed by the band's founder & lead guitarist, Kim Simmonds.   Its not that its terrible, its just not that interesting and kind of boring!

Looking In is the band's sixth album and their first as a quartet (songwriter-vocalist, Chris Youlden left the band earlier in the year).  

The record is bookended by two short and pleasant sounding guitar solo pieces: "Gypsy" & "Romanoff".  The second song, "Poor Girl" (written by bassist Tony "Tone" Stevens) is the albums most blistering blues tune and features some very solid psychedelic-tinged guitar playing. (Although at first, we thought the singer was singing "she's a porker" instead of "she's a poor girl" and we preferred that version over the real one!)

"Money Can't Save Your Soul" is decent, but kind of long and boring.  Same with the instrumental, "Sunday Night".  Stuff like this you can see at a decent local blues bar almost any time.  The upbeat, blues-boogie, "Looking In" closes out Side One with some more impressive playing by Simmonds (who also served as producer on the album!)

Side Two's "Take It Easy" sounds a little like early Grateful Dead or maybe even like The Faces if they took a bunch of quaaludes. "Sitting and Thinking" is another Simmond's guitar showcase and the nearly nine-minute "Leavin' Again" sounds like an overwrought, underwhelming early Blues jam by leftcoasters Quicksilver Messenger Service or the aforementioned, Grateful Dead.  A lot of fuss, just not that fun! 

FUN FACT: After this album, singer-rhythm guitarist "Lonesome" Dave Peverett, bassist Tony Stevens and drummer Roger Earl would leave the band to go on and form Foghat leaving Kim Simmonds on his own to re-form Savoy Brown.  He was probably a dick!

Believe us, friends, we really wanted this album to be great! In an era when hard rock, British blues and psychedelia got along so well, our hopes and expectations were set very, very high.  No matter how hard we tried, we really couldn't get our heads nodding and fists pumping while listening to Savoy Brown.

Still, that album cover!

RATING: 3 rattlesnake boots, elephant bag & genuine crocodile hats out of 5  

Os Mutantes - "Bat Macumba" (1969)

Hello Friends,

Listening to Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 this weekend put us in the mood for their psychedelic counterparts, Sao Paolo's groundbreaking, Os Mutantes.  

Desfrutar!

13th Floor Elevators: Easter Everywhere

The 13th Floor Elevators - "Easter Everywhere" (1967) - International Artist

Hello Friends,

The year 1967 marked a turning point in music and culture, especially in these here United States.  There was no shortage of good music either.  Bands began pushing the envelope with sounds and instruments.  1967 had debuts from The Doors, The Grateful Dead, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Moby Grape, Big Brother & the Holding Company, The Velvet Underground, Pink Floyd & Leonard Cohen.  Frank Zappa & The Mothers released Absolutely Free.  The Kinks gave us Something Else.  The Beach Boys cut & pasted together, Smiley Smile. Cream, Disraeli Gears. The Who Sell Out.  The Stones' Their Satanic Majesties Request. And the grandaddy of them all, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Released just one year after their amazing debut, The 13th Floor Elevators released Easter Everywhere, another psychedelic masterpiece.  Like the times themselves, there's a definite evolution here as well.  Not only was the band continually expanding their minds through living the Rock & Roll lifestyle, but by '67 they were more worldly & world-weary.  Also, by most reports, they were probably ingesting more psychedelics than your average, run-of-the-mill Texas garage band!  Just say no, kids!

The band has broadened their sound as well, playing a slightly more developed version of their signature psychedelic blues with more folk, jazz & Eastern influences thrown in.  For their sophomore effort, the rhythm section would also be updated.  Bassist Ronnie Leatherman and drummer John Ike Walton would be replaced by Dan Galindo and Danny Thomas, respectively.  Of course, each song on the record is enhanced by Tommy Hall's ubiquitous and fluttering electric jug playing! 

Frontman Roky Erickson is in especially fine form.  His barbaric yawp never sounded better! With whacky stream of consciousness lyrics, he's equal parts Syd Barrett & Jim Jones. William Blake & Charlie Manson.  Whimsically menacing.  Almost like a crazed Bob Dylan leading a religious cult while ingesting healthy doses of lysergic acid.

Things get kicked off with "Slip Inside This House" which typifies everything that's to follow on the record.  Blistering psychedelic rock with equal parts drugs & blues. Erickson's manic philosophy invites the listener in to "slip inside this house as you pass by". At over 8 minutes, it sounds more like a Sermon than a follow-up to "You're Gonna Miss Me".

"Slide Machine" was written by frequent Elevators pal & muse, Powell St. John.  Now we're not exactly sure what a slide machine is except that "it sweeps bones right off the road" and the image of a slide machine headed our way with Stacy Sutherland's angry fuzz guitar and Hall's maniacal jug is enough to scare the crap out of anyone, stoned or otherwise!

"She Lives (In A Time of Her Own)" is a fantastic little 3 minute psych-pop gem which sounds like it would have sounded perfectly at home on their debut record, The Psychedelic Sounds of The 13th Floor Elevators.

On Surrealistic Pillow (also 1967), The Jefferson Airplane asked "Don't You Want Somebody to Love"?  On Easter Everywhere, Stacy Sutherland channels both the Airplane and The Byrds (two West Coast-influences) on the lamenting and fuzzy, "Nobody to Love". 

Side One wraps up with a grungy, desperate-sounding version of Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue".  Erickson channeling Dylan is equal parts triumphant and heartbreaking!  

Side Two opens up with another rollicking psychedelic thrill ride, "Earthquake" (think "Roller Coaster" from The Psychedelic Sounds Of).

This rager is followed by one of the band's most raw and vulnerable-sounding songs, "Dust". A quiet and mostly acoustic ballad with cryptic, haiku-type lyrics is about as close to a "love" song as the band would ever get!

In a much cooler alternate Universe, "I've Got Levitation" would have been Easter Everywhere's "hit" single. Once again, it sounds a little like The Byrds or even more like The Monkees on LSD.  (It also contains the lyric, "The waves of higher bodies soon dazzling in my ears / Will center my vibrations with the music of the spheres" inspiring the name of the box set!)

Clementine Hall (Tommy's wife) would co-write and harmonize on the gorgeous-sounding, "I Had to Tell You" which has Roky sounding a lot like Michael Stipe. (Just listen to the way he sings, "I'm feelin' fine" at the end of the each chorus!) Clementine was no Yoko however, as this song is fantastic, as is the song she co-wrote on the first record, "Splash 1".

The album's last track is, unfortunately, the album's only weak song.  "Postures (Leave Your Body Behind)" provides a Motown-influenced backdrop to Roky's meandering lyrics about out-of-body consciousness.  Its all rather new age-y.  It probably would have worked much better against noisy, fuzzy guitars, feedback and drums that sound like they might be tumbling down a set of stairs.

As part of the MUSIC OF THE SPHERES BOX SET, this updated & remastered vinyl edition of Easter Everywhere is presented as a double LP with both Mono & Stereo versions of the record.  I'm sure somewhere else someone has done a pretty thorough breakdown of the differences between the two versions.  What we basically notice is that the Mono version has a fuller sound with a deeper bass mix and more prominent jug-playing.  (Imagine the Saturday Night Live sketch with Christopher Walken telling Will Ferrell/Tommy Hall, "More Jug!") 

Easter Everywhere would be the Elevators' penultimate release as well as their masterpiece.  In that much cooler, alternate universe that we mentioned earlier, The 13th Floor Elevators are so much more than just rock & roll footnotes.  If there was any justice in the world, it would be Roky Erickson's meddlesome mug gracing posters in teenagers' rooms in the late 60's and 70's instead of that creep Jim Morrison!  Lizard king, my ass!

RATING: 4.5 Three-eyed Men Are Not Complaining They Can Yo-Yo Where They Will Out of 5

 

Prog Rock Saturday: Atom Heart Mother

Pink Floyd - "Atom Heart Mother" (1970) - Harvest

Hello Friends,

On tonight's edition of Prog Rock Saturday, we've got Pink Floyd's 1970 oft-overlooked release, Atom Heart Mother.    

Oft-overlooked, you say?  Why's that?  Well, for starters, its kind of in that gray area between the early Syd Barrett stuff and the juggernaut the band would eventually become in the Seventies.  It tows the line between whimsical psychedelic pop and weird, "out-there" experimental prog rock.  It also seems like the band wasn't really overly satisfied with the record.  None of the material really ever became live staples and the best song on the record, Richard Wright's "Summer '68", was never performed live!

Actually, its a pretty great album, just not as great as what was to follow-- including the outstanding Meddle, the fairly normal-sounding Obscured by Clouds and the classic Dark Side of the Moon!  Atom Heart Mother is the sound of seeds being planted and laying the groundwork for the in-studio virtuosity that was just around the corner! 

The album's cover artwas designed by Hipgnosis-- the English designers who created most of the band's iconic album covers.  Reportedly, the band requested the cover to be "something plain" and not psychedelic at all.  I guess they got what they wanted with ol' Lulubelle!

Side One is completely occupied by the titular suite.  Part spaghetti western, part free form, psychedelic jam, "Atom Heart Mother" sounds like it could be the soundtrack for a Stanley Kubrick movie!  (In fact, rumor has it that Kubrick wanted to use this music in his Clockwork Orange film but was reportedly denied by the band!  Here's a video of what the intro to the film might have looked like if Stanley got his way!)

Written by the entire band plus composer, Ron Geesin, the "Atom Heart Mother" suite is a pretty trippy composition.  Very soundtracky.  Lots of ambiance.  With a definite beginning, middle and an end.  Lots a quiet-loud-quiet.  Crescendos.  Repeated themes. Some great David Gilmour guitar work (especially on the suite's Fourth movement, entitled "Funky Dung".) There's no singing, but there are wordless vocal choruses.  Its no "Echoes" or "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", but its not too far off.

Incidentally, some original titles for the instrumental piece were "Theme From An Imaginary Western", "Epic" and "The Amazing Pudding".  The title "Atom Heart Mother" was lifted from the headlines from the Evening Standard newspaper from an article about a pregnant woman who received an artificial nuclear pacemaker! 

Side Two contains four songs each sort of displaying the talents of the four individual members of the band.

"If" is a gorgeous Roger Waters ballad.  Say what you will about Waters, the dude could write a ballad and "If" is cranky Roger at his introspective, vulnerable and paranoid best.

"If I were a swan, I'd be gone.
And if I were a train, I'd be late.
And if I were a good man, I would talk with more often than I do.
If I were to sleep, I could dream.
If I were afraid, I could hide.
If I go insane, please don't put your wires in my brain."

Some great guitar work as well.  Not many could bend the strings quite like Dave Gilmour could!

Keyboardist Richard Wright's aforementioned, "Summer '68" is next.  An upbeat (by Pink Floyd standards), Beatles-ish romp featuring some great Wright piano playing as well as some interesting overlapping harmonies. The song seems to be about hooking up with a groupie that you're really not all that interested in:

"I hardly even like you, I shouldn't care at all.
We met just six hours ago and the music was too loud.
From your bed I gained a day, and lost a bloody year...
My friends are lying in the sun, I wish I was there. 
Tomorrow brings another town, another girl like you."

Ouch!

David Gilmour contributes the acoustic "Fat Old Sun", another fantastic track that if heard with the right ears echoes the Kinks' "Sunny Afternoon" on Seconal.   Very pastoral... a perfect song for a late Summer's evening:

"When that Fat Old Sun in the sky is falling,
Summer evening birds are calling.
Children's laughter in my ears,
The last sunlight disappears."

And our favorite line on the album, "New mown grass smells so sweet..."

One of the problems with an album like this, and with a lot of prog rock in general, is when a band wants to display the talents of each of the members collectively and individually.  Lots of times this forces a non-songwriting member of the band, usually the drummer (in this case Nick Mason), to contribute something individual.  This is always a problem on a ELP records or on something particularly bloated like Yes's Topographic Oceans.  No one wants to hear a 20 minute drum solo!!!  Mason's contribution here is "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast", a soundscape that revolves around some ramblings by Floyd roadie, Alan Styles.  (An idea which would be fleshed out with roadie, Roger "The Hat"'s insane-sounding musings appearing throughout Dark Side of The Moon.)  Also like on Dark Side, there are sound affects galore; frying eggs, pouring cereal, sipping coffee, faucets dripping, banging pots and pans, etc.

Aside from some fantastic Dave Gilmour acoustic / lap steel guitar work on the middle section, the tune itself is pretty forgettable!          

RATING: 4 Dark Sides of the Moo out of 5

13th Floor Elevators: Live in California

13th Floor Elevators - "Live in California" (1966) - International Artists

Hello Friends,

We're enjoying another record from our Music of the Spheres Box Set tonight. 

Recorded "live on LSD" in San Francisco in the fall of 1966, the Live in California LP captures rock & roll's first psychedelic band at the height of their demonic powers and its presence in the box set marks the first time that this LP would be officially released on vinyl.  

Live in California is much better quality than most of the bootleg-type live stuff that we've heard from the Elevators. The rhythm section gets a little muddy-sounding at times but still the vocals, guitars and electric jug come across sounding crisp and alive!   (Its much better, for example, than the official 1968 release "Live" which is basically outtakes of songs "enhanced" by fake crowds and overdubbed clapping!)  

Presumably recorded from a series of gigs at San Francisco's Avalon Ballroom, the exact dates or locations of these recordings remain a mystery.  What is known is that in the Fall of 1966, the Elevators migrated from Austin, TX to San Francisco, CA and shocked/awed/inspired audiences in the Bay Area.  During their tenure, they played with bands like Big Brother & The Holding Company, The Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Jefferson Airplane & The Sir Douglas Quintet.  A real who's who of what was to become known as the "San Francisco sound."  There's no doubt that the Elevators presence in this scene was hugely influential not only because of their ground-breaking sound, but because of their LSD-fueled frenzied live performances. Like demons slithering in Eden.

Kicking things off on the record is a raucous cover of Solomon Burke's "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love"-- an R&B song covered by practically every garage band from 1964 to 1968-- however in Roky Erickson's hands it becomes a demented-druggy sermon to his eager parishioners: "So glad to be here tonight / It's so good to be home / And I've got a message I want to tell everybody tonight..."  Intense and furious.    

Another oft-covered blues tune, Bo Diddley's "Before You Accuse Me", is next.  If you were on acid seeing these guys perform, no doubt by the second song you were convinced that ringleader Roky Erickson, with fire in his eyes, was some sort of rock and roll demon and that maniacal boop-boop-boop-boop sound being made by the kid with the ceramic jug was actually sounds emitting from the innards of your own subconscious!

The originals "You Don't Know (How Young You Are)" and "Splash 1" are next and sound pretty close to the record versions.  By this time in their young career, they've probably knew these songs inside-out but considering the generous amounts of mind-altering substances they were ingesting on a daily basis, they do a great job holding things together!

The Buddy Holly hit, "I'm Gonna Love You Too" makes an appearance and wouldn't be heard from again until Blondie covered it in 1978.

"You Really Got Me" closes out Side One and the Kinks have never sounded so threatening and dark!

Side Two begins with a howling version of "Fire Engine" with some extra crazy-sounding electric jug!  

Next up there's two more cover songs, the oft-covered Chuck Berry classic, "Roll Over Beethoven", followed by the Rubber Sole classic, "The Word".  Not your typical cover song in 1966, but in the Roky Erikcson and the Elevators' hands it sounds less like a pot-influenced love song and much more like a fiery, drug-fueled, Revelation-inspired sermon. Charlie Manson would be proud!    

The side closes out with "Monkey Island" and an excellent, extended version of "Roller Coaster" complete with start-stops, tempo changes and more Erickson howling litanies: 

"You've gotta open up your mind and let everything come through..."

Kinda funny how "You're Gonna Miss Me" is absent from the set considering how it would have been the band's biggest (and only) "hit" of the time and you think the band would have been playing it any chance they got!  We're not really complaining though because we really like this record as is!

RATING: 4.5 starts like a roller coaster ride so real it takes your breath away out of 5