Country Joe & the Fish Celebrate the Summer of Love

Folk-rock outfit Country Joe & the Fish – formed in 1965 by singer/songwriter Country Joe McDonald and guitarist Barry “Fish” Melton – are best known for their infamous August 1969 appearance at Woodstock, McDonald leading the audience in shouting “The Fish Cheer” (“gimme an ‘F’…”) before launching into a memorable performance of the anti-war “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag.” One of the most innovative and popular bands in the San Francisco area, Country Joe & the Fish were steeped in the psychedelic-rock of the time, but tempered their flower-power excesses with elements of folk, blues, and even jazz to underscore their often politically-charged lyrics.

Country Joe & the Fish released their first two albums during 1967, their debut Electric Music For the Mind and Body appearing just in time for the “Summer of Love” while I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die, recorded in July, bookended the debut LP later that year. Both albums were groundbreaking, influential efforts by a then-veteran band, musically-adventurous with McDonald’s songs offering up intelligent political commentary and satire. On January 26th, 2018 Craft Recordings will celebrate Country Joe & the Fish’s “Summer of Love’ with the release of a limited-edition vinyl box set, The Wave of Electrical Sound. Both re-mastered albums will also be reissued as stand-alone LPs and have already been released digitally on iTunes and elsewhere.

Limited to 2,000 copies worldwide, The Wave of Electrical Sound is a four-album box set offering both mono and stereo version of Electric Music For the Mind and Body and I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die pressed on audiophile quality 180-gram vinyl. The albums are packaged in old-school-style tip-on jackets, with the mono versions of both albums sporting rare alternative cover artwork while the stereo versions of both feature replicas of their original cover art. The box set also includes a bunch of cool band memorabilia from the era including replicas of The Fish Game, a Fish Fan Club book, and a Fish calendar designed by Tom Weller as well as a DVD of How We Stopped The War, a 30-minute documentary film on the band and a 24-page book with rare photos and artwork and new liner notes from writer, producer, and musician Alec Palao.

In his liner notes for the box set, Palao writes, “what makes both albums Country Joe & the Fish recorded in 1967 so significant is not just the presentation, but the repertoire...the writing is extraordinary. Whatever influence from Dylan, Richard Farina and others McDonald might have absorbed, his muse was his own, and fully on display with idiosyncratic material that dripped with imagery and allusion.”

Buy the vinyl box set from Amazon.com: Country Joe & the Fish’s The Wave of Electrical Sound

Book Review: Richard Morton Jack's Psychedelia - 101 Iconic Underground Rock Albums 1966-1970 (2017)

It’s been better than a year since we’ve seen Richard Morton Jack’s excellent music zine Flashback, but I guess that the publisher and editor had a good reason for the lack of a new issue. The British author’s recently-arrived book – the hardback coffee-table tome Psychedelia: 101 Iconic Underground Rock Albums 1966-1970 – is 256 pages of gorgeous album artwork and informative music history that deserves a place on the shelf of every fan of classic rock ‘n’ roll.

Morton Jack is no neophyte to music journalism; a regular contributor to music magazines like Mojo, Q, and Record Collector he also publishes Flashback and is co-founder of the specialist reissue label Sunbeam Records. Morton Jack is also the author of several previous books, including Endless Trip and Galactic Trip, and he edited the new edition of The Tapestry of Delights, a guide to 1960s and ‘70s-era British pop and rock.

Richard Morton Jack’s Psychedelia: 101 Iconic Underground Rock Albums 1966-1970

While some may argue about Morton Jack’s choices for the book’s “101 iconic underground rock albums,” there’s no doubting his authority on the subject – the writer has probably forgotten more about psychedelic rock than most of us will ever know. Psychedelia is arranged chronologically by the date of each album’s release, and Morton Jack is generous in his definition of the psychedelic-rock era, dating it from 1966 to 1970 (with ’67 being the genre’s peak). A lot of music historians feel that the psychedelic era had petered out by late ’68 in spite of the glaring fact that artists were still exploring the music’s potential as late as 1970; I side with Morton Jack in this argument.

So, the first album featured in Psychedelia is Bob Dylan’s 1966 LP Blonde on Blonde, a courageous choice that Morton Jack deftly defends in his notes. A handful of other pioneering early psych albums from ’66 are included, including LPs by the Yardbirds, the Blues Magoos, and the Deep as well as an odd bodkins outlier, Pat Kilroy’s Light of Day. From here, we’re off to the races, with 1967’s wealth of psychedelia including both well-known releases like the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Country Joe & the Fish’s Electric Music for the Mind and Body, and Pink Floyd’s The Piper at the Gates of Dawn as well as relative obscurities like Captain Beefheart’s Safe as Milk and the 13th Floor Elevators’ Easter Everywhere as well as discs from folks like Moby Grape, the Bee Gees (?!), Love, and Jefferson Airplane.

From Golden Dawn to the Pretty Things

When 1968 rolled around, if we are to believe conventional wisdom, psychedelic rock was already waning, a misconception disabused by Psychedelia. From January’s International Artists label release Power Plant by Golden Dawn and Spirit’s self-titled debut to December’s S.F. Sorrow by the Pretty Things, and with albums in-between by artists as diverse and adventuresome as the Mothers of Invention, the Zombies, the United States of America, Silver Apples, the Grateful Dead and many others, the meat and potatoes of Psychedelia can be dated to 1968. Everything occurring afterwards – self-titled albums by visionary bands like Kak, Gandalf, the Charlatans, Mighty Baby, and Arzachel as well as essential psych-rock LPs like Sam Gopal’s Escalator, Alexander “Skip” Spence’s Oar, and Quicksilver Messenger Service’s Happy Trails – are all gravy, released in 1969 and ’70.

The entry for each album includes a 7” to 8” color reproduction of the album’s original artwork, the book’s hefty 10” by 11.5” size allowing for the brilliance of each album’s cover to be preserved and presented in detail. Morton Jack’s accompanying notes offer insightful historical context for each album, often provided by interviews with the artists, both new and previously-published in the music press. Psychedelia also includes a deeply-researched timeline of psychedelic music as well as special sections on U.S. and U.K. music publications, great American and European psychedelic singles, rock festivals and, lest one forget the original inspiration for the psychedelic revolution, a brief history of LSD.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Richard Morton Jack’s Psychedelia is unassailable as both a history of psychedelic rock or as a guide to the essential albums of the era. These are the records that would set the table for much of what would follow in rock ‘n’ roll, from the guitar pyrotechnics and progressive rock of the ‘70s to 1980s-era garage rock and the psychedelic revival of the ‘90s. More than just another good-looking coffee table book, Psychedelia offers substance and style, providing a lot of info to chew on for the baby-faced new fan and psychedelic veteran alike. Whether you’re a longtime fan of the psychedelic style or you’re looking for an introduction to the genre, you can’t go wrong with Psychedelia, which would be a bargain at twice the price. Grade: A (Sterling, published May 2, 2017)

Check out Flashback music zine

Buy the book from Amazon.com: Richard Morton Jack’s Psychedelia

Video of the Week: Goldray’s Rising

Sometimes you really can judge a book from its cover – in this case, an advertisement on the back cover of the latest issue of Shindig! music zine (the one with Jimi on the front cover) caught my eye. The ad is for the album Rising by British psych-rockers Goldray, a fairly new band formed by industry veteran Kenwyn House, guitarist for 1990s-era British band Reef, which enjoyed quite a few hits in the U.K. and developed somewhat of a cult following stateside. The colorful ad quoted Prog Magazine as saying that Goldray’s music was “a blend of Zeppelin and Kate Bush.”

My curiosity piqued, I tracked down this video for the title track of Goldray’s debut LP and was gleefully surprised. “Rising,” the song, pushes all of our favorite buttons here at That Devil Music world HQ – blues, psychedelia, guitar-driven hard rock, ethereal female vox, punchy percussion – the song an amalgam of all of the above and much, much more. Lead singer Leah Rasmussen does, indeed, sound a bit like Bush during her loftiest moments, but she’s just as likely to test her vocal chords like Grace Slick, imbuing the lyrics with muscular emotion. House is a badass guitarist who I’m surprised I haven’t heard of before, his unhinged lysergic fretwork on the song the freshest thing these tired ears have heard since King Gizzard’s “microtones.”

I ordered the band’s CD this afternoon and if this is your cuppa heady psych-rock brew, you should get one, too...

Buy the CD from Amazon.com: Goldray's Rising

CD Preview: The Creation’s Action Painting

Those of you who aren’t ‘60s rock fanatics (Greg Prevost, Mike Stax, I’m looking at you guys!), may not be familiar with the Creation. One of the great cult bands of ‘60s-era British rock, the Creation were what aficionados term a “freakbeat” band, their style a unique mix of psychedelic-rock, period pop, guitar-driven garage-rock, and avant-garde experimentation rare in commercially-oriented rockers of the era. The band’s best-known tune is, perhaps, “Painter Man,” a psych-drenched, radio-ready slab o’ wax that hit the Top 40 in the U.K. in 1966 while also charting in Germany.

Although the Creation enjoyed mixed chart returns with other single releases like “Making Time,” “If I Stay Too Long,” and “Life Is Just Beginning” circa 1966-68, and they were hot stuff in Germany and northern Europe, their commercial prospects dwindled in their homeland and they were never able to find a stateside audience. Notable for American Shel Talmy (The Who, The Kinks) producing their early singles, and for musicians like Mick Avory (The Kinks) and Ronnie Wood (The Faces) passing through its ranks, the Creation drew predictable comparisons to the Who. In reality, the band pursued a unique sound created by the wandering muse of guitarist Eddie Phillips that would influence a generation of British musicians to follow, including the Jam’s Paul Weller and even contemporary Pete Townshend. What the Velvet Underground was in terms of inspiration for American rockers, the Creation was to England’s guitar-wielding youth.

The Creation never released a full-length album during their brief career, although there have been various compilations appearing in the years (and decades) since, the most notable of these being the wonderful 24-track “Our music is red – with purple flashes” CD. On March 17th, 2017 the Numero Group will release the final word on the Creation with Action Painting, a two-disc compilation available on both CD and vinyl that collects every studio recording ever made by the band, including rare U.S. single releases. All 46 tracks here have been re-mastered from the original master tapes by producer Shel Talmy; including new stereo mixes where previously unavailable.

Action Painting includes a very cool 80-page hardbound book (CD version only) featuring new essays from Dean Rudland and esteemed music historian Alec Palao that tell the band’s story in depth and details the Creations’ studio sessions. The book offers up dozens of rare, previously-unpublished photos of the band as well as four songs by early ‘60s pre-Creation freakbeat quartet the Mark Four that featured original Creation vocalist Kenny Pickett, guitarist Phillips, and future Kinks bassist John Dalton. Taken altogether, Numero’s Action Painting provides as detailed a history of this important, influential band as is possible, the set hopefully placing the Creation’s groundbreaking sound in proper context and raising their status to match that of rock ‘n’ roll contemporaries like the Who and the Kinks.

Buy the CD from Amazon.com: The Creation's Action Painting

CD Review: Arjen Anthony Lucassen's Strange Hobby (1996/2016)

Arjen Anthony Lucassen is best known as the mad genius behind Ayreon, the groundbreaking progressive rock project that has created such breathtaking “rock operas” as The Human Equation and 01011001, conceptual albums that have left an indelible imprint on the ongoing evolution of prog-rock. As if eight wildly influential Ayreon albums weren’t enough to cement his musical legacy, the Dutch musician has formed critically-acclaimed bands like Star One, Guilt Machine, and Stream of Passion to explore other musical dimensions.

Lucassen’s commercial breakthrough originally came with the 1998 Ayreon album Into The Electric Castle. A couple years previous, however, Lucassen was just another scrappy, struggling prog-rock visionary looking to leave his mark on a genre rapidly growing in worldwide popularity. Like so many modern ‘neo’ proggers (I’m looking at you Roine Stolt and Neal Morse), Lucassen came of age during the “classic rock” era of the 1960s and ‘70s, the future artist enchanted by the Beatles, Pink Floyd, the Kinks and other trailblazers in pop and psychedelic rock ‘n’ roll.

Arjen Anthony Lucassen’s Strange Hobby

After finishing up the recording of 1996’s Actual Fantasy, the second Ayreon album, Lucassen needed to blow off some steam…so he recorded the mysterious Strange Hobby, a covers album released in late 1996 by Transmission Records. Strange Hobby was “mysterious” in that nobody knew who made the album, and the album artwork offered no clues as to its provenance. In the middle of the front cover’s psychedelic artwork sits a bold, enigmatic question mark. In reality, Strange Hobby is a collection of Lucassen’s favorite tunes from the ‘60s, music that influenced him and helped develop the sonic palette that he would put to good use in creating his own music. The album was a bust commercially and has been out-of-print for over a decade, ratcheting up its demand as a premium (i.e. pricey) collectible.

Twenty years on, Lucassen has reissued Strange Hobby on CD on his own Aluca Music label, adding a handful of new bonus tracks to sweeten the deal. More than a gift to his loyal fans, the album is a hell of a lot of fun for anybody who loves classic rock ‘n’ roll. The reissued Strange Hobby offers up 22 rip-roarin’ takes on tunes by the aforementioned Beatles, Pink Floyd, and the Kinks alongside some not unexpected choices from the Monkees, Donovan, Bob Dylan, and the Rolling Stones as well as some totally unexpected (and, honestly, somewhat off-the-wall) covers of songs by Status Quo, the Beach Boys, and Kaleidoscope (the British psychedelic outfit, not the American band). Call it Lucassen’s personal version of Pin-Ups if you will, the singer and musician bringing the same sort of passion and love of the material to his performances as Bowie did with his legendary album.

Flowers In The Rain

The nice thing about Strange Hobby is Lucassen’s unpredictability – he doesn’t just pick the low-hanging pop/rock fruit here with his musical choices, but rather often strays from the path of orthodoxy. All of the performances are reverent to the original, but expanded upon with harder rocking instrumentation and arrangements. Pink Floyd’s Syd Barrett-penned psych classic “Arnold Layne” is a fuzzed up joy with grinding guitars and cavernous, echoed vocals while another Barrett gem, “See Emily Play,” is a fetching slab of swirling guitars, cacophonous instrumentation, and clever musical flourishes. Lucassen’s cover of Status Quo’s classic “Pictures of Matchstick Men” thankfully keeps the original’s hypnotic guitar riffs but benefits from a bigger, bolder, in-your-face arrangement that provides the song a veritable “wall of sound.”

Lucassen’s reading of Dylan’s wan “I Want You” is my second favorite version of the song (behind Springsteen but in front of Bobby Z). The song’s fast-paced arrangement adds a sense of urgency to its yearning lyrics, while busy instrumentation gets the listener’s foot tapping and the blood flowing. The Move’s “Flowers In The Rain” captures the mid-‘60s lysergic innocence of Roy Wood’s original with buoyant vocals and wonderfully miasmic instrumentation while “The Letter” takes the Box Tops’ hit in a poppier direction than Alex Chilton’s soulful original while retaining the song’s romantic blues vibe. T.Rex’s “Ride A White Swan” is a glam-era treat and Arjen puts on his best Marc Bolan vox for a trippy sojourn with an infectious melody. Of the four “bonus tracks” afforded Strange Hobby, Lucassen’s original “Pretty Girls” is a gift, a period-perfect slice of psych-drenched power pop with lovely vocals and pulse-quickening instrumentation while the Monkees’ “Last Train To Clarksville” (a Boyce/Hart gem) is given a revved-up, ambitious reading delivered with gleeful, reckless abandon.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

There’s nary a fumble in any of the 22 tracks on Strange Hobby, and just because I didn’t write about the album’s electrifying covers of the Who (John Entwistle’s “Boris the Spider”), Simon & Garfunkel (“I Am A Rock”), the Kinks (“Sunday Afternoon”), the Hollies (“Bus Stop”), or Donovan (“Catch The Wind”), among the others, doesn’t mean that they’re not worthy of mention. Lucassen imbues each performance with a sincere love of, and a unique vision for each song, resulting in an album that entertains but also reminds the listener of their own fondness for these timeless rock ‘n’ roll treasures.

Whereas many (most?) cover songs released over the past couple of decades have been recorded as a cynical commercial ploy for radio airplay and chart position, Strange Hobby is a breath of fresh air, the welcome sound of an artist-turned-fanboy joyfully recording some of their favorite music for anybody who’ll listen. The soundtrack of Arjen Lucassen’s life has served him well, and I’m glad he decided to share these songs with the rest of us. Grade: A (Aluca Music, released July 15, 2016)

Buy the CD from Amazon.com: Arjen Anthony Lucassen's Strange Hobby

Light In The Attic Reissues Third Power LP for Record Store Day!

Record Store Day is still 63 days away as of this writing, and little has been revealed about what sort of vinyl labels – large and small – will be releasing for the holiday. Light In The Attic Records has announced a few items for RSD, though, including a Shaggs’ 7” single, but hard rock collectors will be salivating over the first release on vinyl in 45+ years of the Third Power’s Believe album.

Third Power was formed by guitarist Drew Abbott, bassist/singer Jem Targal, and drummer Jim Craig in 1965 in Detroit, but they didn’t get their act together to perform live until 1968, at which time they joined a thriving and competitive Motor City rock scene that boasted of future legends like MC5, Bob Seger, the Stooges, SRC, and Dick Wagner’s Frost. Third Power’s growing reputation as a live band performing at rough ‘n’ tumble clubs like Detroit’s legendary Grande Ballroom got them signed to Vanguard Records, also Frost’s label.

Working with Samuel Charters, who had produced albums by both Frost and Country Joe & the Fish, Third Power recorded their only album, Believe, which was released by Vanguard in 1970. Believe barely scraped its way onto the Billboard Top 200 albums chart (#194) and Third Power was subsequently dropped by the label, the band breaking up shortly thereafter. Abbott went on to become an integral part of Bob Seger’s Silver Bullet Band during the late 1970s and early ‘80s, and Targal released a single solo album before disappearing from the scene.

Over the years, Third Power has become considered as one of many revered Motor City cult bands (along with SRC, the Up, and the Rationals). A classic power trio in the Cream vein, Third Power was capable of pulling off fine melodies and vocal harmonies amidst its roaring instrumental Sturm und Drang, the band mixing psychedelic and hard-rock with a hint of folk and blues influences. Lost for decades even as it grew in status, Believe was first released on CD by Italy’s Akarma Records and has seen subsequent CD reissue – mostly as a dodgy semi-bootleg – by a number of fly-by-night outfits.

Light In The Attic’s vinyl reissue of Believe is a 2016 Record Store Day exclusive pressed on red wax and mastered from the original tapes. The album is housed in a deluxe gatefold “tip-on” jacket and will include a download card for eleven bonus tracks, including a non-album B-side, a couple of live tracks from the Grande Ballroom, and a bunch of studio outtakes. Liner notes by Willy Wilson include quotes from Abbott and Targal as well as producer Sam Charters, and the accompanying booklet includes previously unpublished photos.

“Like a meteor shooting across the horizon, the Third Power lit up the Detroit music scene with a ferocious roar like no other group before them. But like all meteors, they only burned bright for a short while…” Wilson writes in the liner notes, which perfectly captures the brilliance that was Third Power. If you’re a fan of high-energy Motor City rock ‘n’ roll, or just guitar-driven 1970s-era hard rock, you’re gonna love Believe! Get your ass down to your local indie record store on April 16th and buy a copy...

Cleopatra’s Psych Box Explores Classic & Modern Psychedelic Rock

It doesn’t surprise the Reverend that the good folks at Cleopatra Records would release a project like the five-CD Psych Box, nosiree! Over the past year, the label has made it their mission to dig up and release undiscovered gems by psych-rock legends like Iron Butterfly and Quicksilver Messenger Service as well as discs by fellow travelers like Curved Air, Captain Beyond, and Hawkwind.

Psych Box is packaged in a 7” x 7” box with individual CD wallets and a full color booklet, the set tracing the history of psychedelic rock from its roots in the 1960s through the present day. The set includes choice music from bands like the aforementioned Iron Butterfly and Hawkwind, the Syn (which featured future Yes guitarist Peter Banks), the Legendary Pink Dots, the Warlocks, the Black Angels, and many more.

The enclosed booklet includes band bios and suggested listening for whatever sort of musical acid trip you’d like to book in the future. The set includes a bonus 7” record featuring a spoken word track by Dr. Timothy Leary with a B-side from Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page. Just check out the track list below and we think you’ll agree that you’re getting a lot of bang for around $40 for the Psych Box!

Psych Box track list:

Disc One
1. The Brian Jonestown Massacre – “Going to Hell”
2. The Black Angels – “Soul Kitchen”
3. The Legendary Pink Dots – “Damien”
4. A Place To Bury Strangers – “Sunbeam”
5. The Warlocks – “You Destroy”
6. Hawkwind – “Opa-Loka”
7. Absolutely Free – “Vision’s”
8. The Movements – “Great Deceiver”
9. Chrome – “Meet You In The Subway”
10. Nikola Tesla & Thee Coils – “Sweet Rays”
11. Rotten Mangos – “Tent Rentals”
12. The Thunderbeats – “Something Inside Me”
13. The Third Sound – “For a While”
14. Sula Bassana – “Lost In Space”
15. Brainticket – “Black Sand”

Disc Two
1. Wild Style Lion – “Love Was In Me” (featuring Kim Gordon)
2. The May Company – “Wrap Around Porch”
3. The See See – “Big Bad Storm”
4. The Syn – “14 Hour Technicolour Dream”
5. Sons of Hippies – “Mirrorball”
6. The Deviants – “Jamie's Song”
7. Cambrian Explosion – “The Sun”
8. Surprise Party – “Cut Me”
9. Siena Root – “In My Kitchen”
10. The Spyrals – “Sunflower Microphone”
11. Studio 69 – “Il Est Juste La”
12. The Litter – “Action Woman”
13. Las Brujas – “Sweaty Windows”
14. Jovontaes – “Forever”
15. Spindrift – “Red Reflection”
16. Dum Dum Girls – “Letter to Hermione”

Disc Three
1. Nico – “All Tomorrow’s Parties”
2. Bonfire Beach – “Black Tinted Moonlight”
3. The Fresh & Onlys – “In The Light”
4. The Altered Hours – “Smoke Your Eyes”
5. Femme Accident – “Everything Goes Wrong”
6. The Ones – “Lady Greengrass”
7. Tales of Murder and Dust – “Laid Bare”
8. Dead Meadow – “The Crystal Ship”
9. The Sonic Dawn – “Japanese Hills”
10. MC5 – “Gold”
11. Tashaki Miyaki – “Take It Or Leave It”
12. Holy Wave – “Do You Feel It”
13. The Tulips – “Winter Winds”
14. Fade In Mona Lisa – “Green Carnations”
15. Electric Moon – “Spaceman”

Disc Four
1. Magic Wands – “Jupiter”
2. Nektar – “It’s All In The Mind”
3. The Chocolate Watchband – “No Way Out”
4. Brujas Del Sol – “Occultation”
5. Calliope – “Iron Hand”
6. Energy 2000 – “Zodiacal Light”
7. The Floormen – “The Place Where The Flat Things Are”
8. The Striped Bananas – “Dark Peace”
9. Indian Jewelry – “Kashmir”
10. Wight Lhite – “Close To Odd”
11. Surly Gates – “Under Your Tongue”
12. Aqua Nebula Oscillator – “Innocent Tu Seras Incandescent”
13. Pink Velvet – “Allez prenons un autre verre”
14. The Crazy World of Arthur Brown – “Devil's Grip”
15. Black Delta Movement – “MacBeth”
16. Aura Blaze – “A Glass of Tears Half Empty”

Disc Five
1. Iron Butterfly – “Possession” (original 7” version)
2. The Fuzztones – “Hallucination Generation”
3. Allah-Las – “Stoned”
4. Love, Hippies & Gangsters – “This Is What We Want”
5. onYou – “National Strings Attached”
6. Secret Colours – “Get To The Sun”
7. The Vacant Lots – “Julia”
8. Black Moon Circle – “The Machine On The Hill”
9. Ttotals – “Life Thus Far Out”
10. Nik Turner – “Time Crypt”
11. Shuggie Otis – “Ice Cream Party” (instrumental)
12. Kim Fowley – “The Trip”
13. Landskap – “South Of No North”
14. The Lucid Experiment – “She’s My Melody”
15. The Raveonettes – “The End”

Buy the box set from Amazon.com: Various Artists - Psych Box

High Moon Reissues Love’s Reel to Real on CD & LP

Psychedelic folk-rock pioneers Love have continued to pick up fans decades after their mid-to-late 1960s artistic peak. The band’s 1967 magnum opus, Forever Changes, is widely revered as one of the most creative and influential albums in rock ‘n’ roll history, and Love frontman Arthur Lee has since become a cult idol heralded as a genius, a status that has only grown since his death in 2006.

While copies of Love classics like Forever Changes and Da Capo are readily available and easy to find for even the novice collector, copies of late-period Love albums, as well as Lee’s infrequent solo albums, have become increasingly more difficult to dig up. Thanks to the good folks at High Moon Records, Love’s previously-unreleased 1973 album Black Beauty was finally made available some 40 years after its recording. The boutique label strikes gold again with its plans to reissue another long-lost Love effort, Reel to Real.

On November 27th, 2015 High Moon Records will reissue Reel to Real on CD and digitally, with a vinyl LP reissue following on February 19th, 2016. Featuring eleven red-hot tracks, Reel to Real was originally released in 1974 by RSO Records. High Moon’s deluxe CD package offers re-mastered audio from the original tapes and a dozen bonus tracks, most of which are previously-unreleased, and includes a full-color, 32-page booklet with an essay by Rolling Stone magazine’s David Fricke as well as rare, unpublished photos. The label’s LP reissue will be pressed on high-quality RTI vinyl and will include a full-color, 28-page LP-sized booklet as well as a download card for the full album and bonus tracks. The digital download will include a full-color, 26-page PDF booklet.

Arthur Lee

A major label follow-up to the indie-produced, ultimately unreleased Black Beauty, Love’s Reel to Real featured the same band as its predecessor: guitarist Melvan Whittington, bassist Robert Rozelle, and drummer Joe Blocker – a talented lineup that Lee referred to as “cats who can play funky and rock” – who were joined by guitarist John Sterling. The album also included guest appearances by guitarists Harvey Mandel (former Canned Heat guitarist and solo artist) and Howard “Buzzy” Feiten (who had played with Paul Butterfield and Bob Dylan).

Availed of a larger budget courtesy of RSO, Love recorded an underrated collection of blues, rock, funk, and soul that is a timeless representation of Lee’s immense musical vision. The bonus tracks provided the High Moon reissue of Reel to Real are sourced from the original sessions for the album and include alternate takes and mixes, live in-studio rehearsals, and four previously-unknown Lee originals: “Do It Yourself,” “I Gotta Remember,” “Somebody,” and “You Gotta Feel It,” the first three of which are said to be fully-produced rockers.

I tracked down a copy of Black Beauty on CD a few months ago and was pleased by the effort that went into the production and packaging; working from original tapes, I expect Reel to Real to sound even better. Reel to Real is available from the High Moon Records website.

Reel to Real - original album tracks:
1. Time Is Like A River
2. Stop The Music
3. Who Are You?
4. Good Old Fashion Dream
5. Which Witch Is Which
6. With A Little Energy
7. Singing Cowboy
8. Be Thankful For What You Got
9. You Said You Would
10. Busted Feet
11. Everybody’s Gotta Live

CD bonus tracks:
12. Do It Yourself [Outtake]
13. I Gotta Remember [Outtake]
14. Somebody [Outtake]
15. You Gotta Feel It [Outtake]
16. With A Little Energy [Alternate Mix]
17. Busted Feet [Alternate Mix]
18. You Said You Would [Single Mix]
19. Stop The Music [Alternate Take]
20. Graveyard Hop [Studio Rehearsal]
21. Singing Cowboy [Alternate Take]
22. Everybody’s Gotta Live [Electric Version]
23. Wonder People (I Do Wonder) [Studio Rehearsal]
     
All Reel to Real bonus tracks previously unreleased except for the "You Said You Would" single mix

Real Gone Music Rocks June!

Our friends at Real Gone Music have announced their June release schedule, and for rockers like us, there are a couple of real gems to be found! On June 2nd, 2015 Real Gone will be reissuing an expanded version of Black Oak Arkansas’s classic Raunch ‘N’ Roll Live album and Ball, Iron Butterfly’s 1969 follow-up to their breakthrough In-A-Gadda- Da-Vida LP.

Southern rockers Black Oak Arkansas were a Dixie-fried boogie band, but with a little more grease and a lot more twang than contemporaries like Foghat or Humble Pie. Three early 1970s studio albums earned the band a well-deserved reputation as beer drinkers and hell raisers; while hovering in the upper regions of the charts, BOA was a mid-tier but sturdy live band, hard-touring wild men that always delivered a good time. Led by wild-ass frontman Jim “Dandy” Mangrum (David Lee Roth before he was David Lee Roth), Black Oak Arkansas mixed up hard rock, rockabilly, blues, and country with a spirit and energy unlike any other Southern band (save for Molly Hatchet, perhaps).

Raunch ‘n’ Roll Live was released as a gatefolded single LP back in 1973, and it provided fans outside of the BOA touring radius with a fair-to-middlin’ representation of the band’s raucous live show. Many critics believe it to be the band’s best album, and I’d agree – it’s certainly their most consistent, with Jim Dandy bellowing out high-octane live takes on studio tracks like “Hot and Nasty,” “Hot Rod,” and “When Electricity Came To Arkansas.” Real Gone has dug deeply and found the master tapes from the two 1972 shows used to source the original album, and they’re releasing an expanded two-disc version called The Complete Raunch ‘N’ Roll Live. Blown up to 17 songs, the reissue includes new tracks like “Fever On My Mind,” “Keep The Faith,” and “Lord Have Mercy On My Soul” that were previously unreleased.

We’ve written about the mighty Iron Butterfly before, and the recent slate of vintage live recordings have been proverbial manna from heaven for long-suffering fans of the band. Sadly, much of Butterfly’s back catalog has been in shambles, a criminal oversight partially redeemed by Real Gone’s reissue of Ball. The band’s third album, Ball was recorded by what is considered to be the classic Butterfly line-up – singer/keyboardist Doug Ingle, guitarist Erik Brann, bassist Lee Dorman, and drummer Ron Bushy – and with another year of touring under their collective belts, Ball featured tighter, shorter, and punchier songs with a hard rock edge and more melodic undertones than their previous acid-rock dirges.

Not that Ball doesn’t include its flights of psychedelic fancy, but singles like “In The Time of Our Lives” and “Soul Experience” proved that Iron Butterfly had more talent and vision than critics had previously given them credit for possessing. Ball rose to #3 on the Billboard album chart, beating its predecessor and representing the peak of the band’s commercial fortunes. The Real Gone reissue of Ball is also an expanded edition, with two bonus tracks (non-LP single sides), re-mastered sound, and brand spankin’ new liner notes by writer Bill Kopp.

Interesting trivia for fellow fanatics – Iron Butterfly’s Lee Dorman and Mike Pinera (who joined the band in 1970) produced Black Oak Arkansas’s self-titled 1971 debut album. Small world, innit?

Buy the CDs from Amazon.com:
Black Oak Arkansas's The Complete Raunch 'N Roll Live (2xCD)  
Iron Butterfly's Ball (expanded edition)

Light In The Attic Releases 13th Floor Elevators Singles Collection

Light In The Attic is dipping its toe deep into the psychedelic waters with the upcoming release of The Complete 13th Floor Elevators IA Singles Collection. Not much ambiguity in that title, really…the box set features eight glorious slabs o’ beautiful 7” black vinyl featuring sixteen essential classic tunes from the band that represents the alpha and omega of psychedelic rock ‘n’ roll. All of these songs were released by the legendary Texas-based International Artists label, and aside from the enduring hit “You’re Gonna Miss Me,” the set also includes the original (and different) version of the song as released by the Spades, the band that came before the Elevators, and a single so rare that it easily fetches a couple thousand simoleons whenever it comes up for sale.

The 13th Floor Elevators were formed in Austin, Texas in 1965 by singer/guitarist Roky Erickson, electric jug player Tommy Hall, and guitarist Stacy Sutherland. The band existed for but a short time – roughly four years from 1965 through ’69 – and released four albums and seven singles for International Artists, More important than the band’s brief tenure and meager recorded output is their role as one of, if not the first psychedelic rock band, lysergic-fringed musical pioneers whose influence touched artists as diverse as ZZ Top, Big Brother & the Holding Company (both with and without Janis Joplin), REM, Television, Zakary Thaks, and many others.

The band’s debut 45, “You’re Gonna Miss Me,” was a re-recording of one of Erickson’s songs with the Spades, the single rising to #55 on the Billboard charts. While they never enjoyed another hit – minor or otherwise – the band nevertheless delivered a pair of classic albums in 1966’s The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators and the following year’s Easter Everywhere, recordings that are still finding new listeners and influencing young psychedelic-oriented musicians to this day. While the band’s catalog and live archives have been exploited seven-ways to Sunday, including a ten-disc box set, Sign of the 3-eyed Men, released in 2009, I haven’t seen a collectors-oriented singles box like this.     

The eight singles included in The Complete 13th Floor Elevators IA Singles Collection are reproduced exactly like the original 45rpm releases, complete with the big hole in the middle, with only the original catalog numbers missing from the run-out grooves. The full-color box set includes a booklet with details on every single release as well as rare photos, and reproductions of French and German picture sleeves. The vinyl itself was cut by DMM utilizing 24-bit digital masters at Abbey Road studios. Check out the Light In The Attic Records website for more info and to pre-order the box set.

The Complete 13th Floor Elevators IA Singles Collection 45s:

1. “You're Gonna Miss Me” b/w “Tried To Hide”
2. “Reverbaration (Doubt)” b/w “Fire Engine”
3. “I've Got Levitation” b/w “Before You Accuse Me”
4. “She Lives (In A Time of Her Own)” b/w “Baby Blue”
5. “Slip Inside This House” b/w “Splash 1”
6. “I'm Gonna Love You Too” b/w “May The Circle Remain Unbroken”
7. “Livin'” On b/w “Scarlet and Gold”
8. “You're Gonna Miss Me” b/w “We Sell Soul” (The Spades)

CD Preview: Vanilla Fudge’s Spirit of ‘67

Vanilla Fudge holds a special place in the history of rock music. Emerging from the mid-1960s psychedelic hard rock scene that also boasted of bands like Iron Butterfly and Blue Cheer, the NYC foursome developed a truly unique, HEAVY sound that would influence bands like Deep Purple and Uriah Heep, and echoes of the low ‘n’ slow Fudge style can even be heard in the production work of late Houston rapper DJ Screw.

On March 3rd, 2015 Vanilla Fudge will release Spirit of ’76 on Purple Pyramid Records (an imprint of Cleopatra Records). Featuring ten cover songs that were popular during the “Summer of Love” – the year the band released its debut album – along with one original number written by founding member Mark Stein, Spirit of ’76 is the band’s first new album since 2007’s Out Through The In Door.    

The original Vanilla Fudge, consisting of singer and keyboardist Mark Stein, guitarist Vinny Martell, bassist Tim Bogert, and drummer Carmine Appice, came to the attention of legendary product George “Shadow” Morton, who was taken with the band’s slowed-down, sludge-drenched cover of the Supremes’ hit “You Keep Me Hangin’ On.” The band recorded the song with Morton producing, which scored them a deal with Atco Records (an Atlantic label subsidiary), and their subsequent self-titled 1967 debut album.

That album rose to number six on the Billboard albums chart on the strength of the band’s original take on popular songs by the Beatles, Sonny Bono, Curtis Mayfield, and Rod Argent. Slowing down each song’s tempo, layering in a rich brew of Stein’s Hammond keyboards and Martell’s stinging guitar, and backed by the sludge-like stew of Bogert and Appice’s mesmerizing rhythms, the album struck a chord with young rock fans. Morton would go on to produce the band’s next two albums, both of which went Top 20, but the further the band strayed from that initial plodding approach to cover tunes, the more their commercial returns diminished, and Vanilla Fudge after the release of their fourth album, Rock & Roll.

Spirit of ’76 represents a return to that legendary psychedelic soul-tinged Vanilla Fudge sound. The album features the talents of most of the original band members – bassist Tim Bogert retired in 2011, to be replaced by Pete Bremy, who played with Appice in a recently reunited Cactus. In a press release for the new album, Appice says that Spirit of ’76 is “the best album we've done since our very first album, with great vocal arrangements and instrumental performances from everyone in the band.” Mark Stein adds “Spirit of ’76 is a record that I'm proud of. The success of Vanilla Fudge has always been based on our interpretations of songs by great artists. Our style of classic and symphonic rock lives large on this effort, and the performances and arrangements I would hope will be enjoyed by old and new fans alike.”

We have the full track list below, Spirit of ’76 featuring imaginative re-makes of classic tunes like the Box Tops’ “The Letter,” the Spencer Davis Group’s “Gimme Some Lovin’,” the Monkees’ “I’m A Believer,” Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth,” and Procol Harum’s “Whiter Shade of Pale.” Guitarist Vinny Martell says “Spirit of ‘76 is the continuation of the journey we began in the Summer of Love – psychedelic, rhythmically powerful arrangements and performances of happening tunes of that era colored by the insight and vision of who we are today.”

Stein’s “Let’s Pray For Peace” is the album’s only original song which, he says, “is about a vision I had that came to me suddenly as if my supreme being was speaking through me…what if all of us could stop for a moment, as naive as it may sound to some, and say: 'who'd like to share, a little silent prayer, let's pray for peace tonight’.”

Unlike a lot of reunited 1960s-era bands, Vanilla Fudge’s members have been busy playing music since their first break-up in 1970. Bogert and Appice formed the beloved blues-rock outfit Cactus with former Mitch Ryder guitarist Jim McCarty and Amboy Dukes frontman Rusty Day, releasing four albums between 1970 and 1972; reuniting for a pair of Cactus studio albums and several live performances in 2006. Bogert and Appice formed a power trio with guitarist Jeff Beck in ’73, scoring a Gold™ album with the self-titled Beck, Bogert & Appice album in 1973.

Bogert and Appice backed up a literal “who’s who” of popular music throughout the 1980s and ‘90s, including Rod Stewart, Leslie West, Bo Diddley, and Pat Travers, among others. Mark Stein stayed busy as well, touring and recording with artists like Dave Mason, Tommy Bolin, and Alice Cooper before Vanilla Fudge re-formed in 2000. The band will be touring in support of Spirit of ’76, so watch for a Vanilla Fudge show near you!

Vanilla Fudge’s Spirit of ’67 Track List:

1.   I Heard It Through The Grapevine
2.  The Letter
3.  I Can See For Miles
4.  Break On Through (To The Other Side)
5.  The Tracks of My Tears
6.  I'm A Believer
7.  Gimme Some Lovin'
8.  For What It's Worth
9.  Ruby Tuesday
10. Whiter Shade of Pale
11. Let's Pray For Peace

Buy the CD from Amazon.com: Vanilla Fudge's Spirit of '67

Iron Butterfly Live At The Galaxy 1967

They’ll forever be known as the “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” band, but Iron Butterfly released six studio and a live album over the course of their initial ten-year run. Formed in 1966 by keyboardist/vocalist Doug Ingle and guitarist Danny Weiss, Iron Butterfly became known as one of the leading progenitors of the era’s psychedelic-rock sound. Unlike almost all of the pop-psych bands of the 1960s, though, Iron Butterfly evinced a sound befitting its name, bringing a sonic tonnage to its material that was shared only by a few like-minded fellow travelers as Blue Cheer.

Aside from a lone 1970 album and 2011’s Fillmore East 1968, there hasn’t been a heck of a lot of live Butterfly recordings floating around collectors’ circles. That oversight will be corrected on May 27th, 2014 when Purple Pyramid – a subsidiary of Cleopatra Records – releases Live At The Galaxy 1967, a rare concert document from the psychedelic-rock legends. The album was recorded at the historic Galaxy Club in Los Angeles, just a few doors down from Whiskey A Go-Go on the infamous Sunset Strip and features the early band line-up which recorded Iron Butterfly’s 1968 debut album Heavy.

The band at the time included Ingle on lead vocals and keyboards, guitarist Weiss, bassist Jerry Penrod, percussionist and singer Darryl DeLoach, and drummer Ron Bushy. Live At The Galaxy 1967 will be released on both compact disc and, in June, on glorious colored 180 gram vinyl. The album is of special interest to fans as it’s a rare document of the early band; Weiss, Penrod, and DeLoach left Butterfly shortly after the January 1968 release of Heavy, replaced by guitarist Erik Brann and bassist Lee Dorman who, along with Ingle and Bushy, represented the best-known and most successful band line-up that recorded the In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (1968) and Ball (1969) albums.        

“Every big name act that was in L.A. came to see us play at the Galaxy,” Ron Bushy remembers in a press release for the album. “There was Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix, etc.” A&R reps from Atlantic Records were also at the show, and promptly signed the band and hustled them into the studio to record Heavy. Six of the twelve performances captured by Live At The Galaxy 1967 are from Heavy, including the band’s signature “Iron Butterfly Theme,” while only two of the other half-dozen songs would be released later, providing long-time fans with some previously unreleased gems from the enigmatic band.    

Live At The Galaxy 1967 track listing:

1. Real Fright
2. Possession
3. Filled With Fear
4. Fields of Sun
5. It’s Up To You
6. Gloomy Day To Remember
7. Evil Temptation
8. So-Lo
9. Gentle As It May Seem
10. Lonely Boy
11. Iron Butterfly Theme
12. You Can’t Win

Buy here from Amazon.com: Live At The Galaxy 1967

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CD Preview: Quicksilver Messenger Service Live At The Old Mill Tavern 1970

There must be a ready market for these Quicksilver Messenger Service pseudo-bootlegs with dodgy provenance (and often questionable sound), because a bunch of fly-by-night labels have cranked out better than a half-dozen such releases in the last four years or so. Live At The Old Mill Tavern, documenting a March 1970 QMS show from Mill Valley, California was released digitally and as a CD-R in 2012 and now gets the full digipak CD treatment from the good folks at Cleopatra Records, which at least ensures a decent package with the best sound possible.

Of all the live QMS recordings floating around, this one is notable in that it features a newly-reunited band line-up that included singer Dino Valenti along with guitarists Gary Duncan and John Cipollina, bassist David Freiberg, keyboardist Nicky Hopkins, and drummer Greg Elmore working out on tunes like Valenti's "Mojo" and Bo Diddley's "Mona." This particular set includes two lengthy blues jams with Chicago blues legend James Cotton (extending out 21+ minutes) and the sort of blues-infused psychedelic pop that only Quicksilver could deliver.

My old buddy Dave Thompson wrote the liner notes for Live At The Old Mill Tavern, and the label's press releases quotes from them, telling us more about the story behind the album. “The six-piece band – Dino Valenti, Gary Duncan, John Cippolina, David Freiberg, and Greg Elmore – had only been playing together a few months, since New Year at the Fillmore rang in this new decade, and they are blazing tonight, ” writes Thompson. “Fiery and more fiery still...waiting in the wings for encore time was harmonica legend Jimmy Cotton, whose eponymous Blues Band was kicking the crap out of more or less every band it came up against in concert...there's a lot of live Quicksilver material out there, and that is how it should be. The records are great but, as all the members have said, it was live that the Messenger Service really smoked, and the live tapes that truly mark the life and times that they lived so well. This recording punches all of those buttons, and a whole bunch more besides!”