The East Side Kids – The Tiger And The Lamb (1968)

Artist: The East Side Kids
Title: The Tiger And The Lamb
Year: 1968
Format: LP
Label: UNI

One of those odd rarities that’s always had a place within my collection, going all the way back to the beginning of my record collecting days. Though definitely not one of the more memorable albums of the late 60′s, as over the years it’s been considered second rate by some.

Understandably, as is the case with many late 60′s one shot bands, the album does contain what some may refer to as filler. Nevertheless, I’ve always had a soft spot for it. Though it admittedly required many listens back in the day before I was able to say I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The Tiger And The Lamb was produced by Buzz Clifford and Dan Moore, previously members of Hamilton Streetcar (see March 8, 2011 post) . The musicianship on this album is quite good…most notably for me, David Potter’s drumming. Yet at the same time The Tiger And The Lamb seems to be lacking in direction and has a tendency to wander, in particular with some of the vocal passages.

This was quite possibly the band and production staff’s intention, as it was 1968 after-all…and far stranger things were issued during that era in an attempt to please the youngsters. The album definitely has a psychedelic/pop vibe, and if you can get past the intermittent directionless and just flow with the music, it’s rather enjoyable.

The Tiger And The Lamb was released on “UNI Records”, who were a subsidiary of Universal City Records/MCA. Many other late 60′s psychedelic and hard rock American bands saw issue on this label, and are today all very sought after by collectors. A few of those bands/artists were; The Hook, The Yellow Payges, Warm Dust, Giant Crab, Alexander’s Timeless Bloozband, Mars Bonfire, Fever Tree, and The Smoke, to name a few (see various posts). (DrProgensteinphp RYM)

Track Listing

1. Is My Love Stong
2. I Remember The Good Times
3. Move Like Love
4. Pidgeon Of L. A.
5. Taking The Time
6. I See I Am
7. Heavy Love The Ballad Of The Gentle People
8. Can’t Feel Love
9. Ask The Bo
10. Dancing In The Street

The Serpent Power – Ouroboros (1969)

Artist: The Serpent Power
Title: Ouroboros
Year: 1969
Format: LP
Label: Locust

1969: After Serpent Power, our first LP for Vanguard (please see July 1, 2010 post), Benny Ellis (rhythm guitar) and David  Stenson (bass) quit the band.  They’d been with The Grass Roots and did the Vanguard recording session as a favor to mutual friend Chris Brooks. Clark Coolidge and I were the sole survivors since Tina, the lead singer, quit after hearing the first album and then performing at The Fillmore.

We had a contract for a second album and had a year to put together a new band and get our shit together. Working out of a cave-like basement in a big office building in San Francisco with mounds of dirt in various uneven slopes and ridges, Clark and I began auditioning musicians for the new band. Mostly we spent hours improvising.

We hired Bob Cuff, rhythm guitarist, who was a member of The Mystery Trend, one of the first art school art bands in San Francisco, and Jim Moscoso, bass.  Jim was the younger brother of our friend Victor Moscoso, an artist and one of the vanguard poster & underground comic artists of the 60s.

We also re-enlisted banjoist J.P. Pickens to join in whenever he had the time. (J.P. and I had been experimenting at the Coffee Gallery of our version of free folk-music, sometimes joined on acoustic guitar by Jim Gurley (who became lead guitar for Big Brother.)

This newly formed group was invited by John Rockwell (now a New York Times cultural critic) to perform on his weekly show on KPFA-FM in Berkeley. Cuff, Coolidge, Moscoso, Meltzer and Pickens walked into KPFA and were greeted by Daniel Moore (visionary poet, leader of The Floating Lotus Opera Company, and now Sufi teacher and storyteller in the East coast.)

He introduced us to his friend Christian who had an alto saxophone which he was in the first stages of learning how to play. They wanted to sit in. Daniel was/is one of the greatest intuitive musicians I’ve run into.

He brought his shenei (Chinese oboe) and a bunch of bells and conch shells into the studio. It was all decidedly spontaneous and in the moment since none of us had really played together. (Daniel and Christian were to become regular members of the band when we worked weekend gigs in North Beach clubs; Pickens would sit in whenever he could, developing new sounds from his amplified banjo.)

This hunk of that first confrontation is one of two reel-to-reel tapes recorded at KPFA that night.  I gave the other half to Jim Moscoso & suspect it’s lost in Borgesville.  David Meltzer, Oakland, CA Autumn, 2006

Track Listing

1. This Side
2. The Other Side

The Novells – That Did It! A Happening, Inc. (1968)

Artist: The Novells
Title: That Did It! A Happening, Inc.
Year: 1968
Format: LP
Label: Mothers

The Novells consisted of Bob Archer (guitar), Ed Benson (bass), Chip Moore (drums) and Terry Tibbets (keyboards). The LP was another Boyce & Hart project in conjunction with H. B. Barnum which has attained celebrity status in collectors circles, the album is a highly consistent mix of garage pop and fuzz driven garage rock.

There are some really awesome songs on this album like the opening track “Almost There”, and their cover of Otis Redding’s “Sitting On the Dock Of The Bay” is AMAZING, Tasty fuzz guitars on the track “Love” (a Lee Michaels cover) It is well worth exploring if you like that kinda fuzzy voice and guitar Psych. Sort of reminds me of a softer Orphan Egg. (J.J. Hildreth)

Track Listing

1. Almost There
2. Love
3. Age Of Innocence
4. Glass House
5. Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay
6. Pink Wallpaper
7. Sunshine Of Your Love
8. Tomorrow’s Yesterday
9. Only You
10. Can’t Ya See It
11. Time To Show Her
    

Bo Grumpus – Before The War (1968)

Artist: Bo Grumpus
Title: Before The War
Year: 1968
Format: LP
Label: Atco

Perhaps the most notable thing about Before The War is that it appeared to be a Felix Pappalardi project. He produced, arranged, wrote some of the songs and played several instruments

Even though this came out after Disraeli Gears (another Felix production) there is little to compare for output. I hate to use the word dated, but it would be the ideal definition.

The album consists of ten pop songs that sometimes show a little potential. Maybe if they had stayed together they would have evolved to another level.

The best songs are “Yesterday’s Streets” and  Pappalardi’s “Travelin’ In The Dark“. Chances are if you find a copy of this it will cost more than it’s worth. (otismidnight RYM)

Track Listing

1. Sparrow Tune
2. Think Twice
3. Yesterday’s Street
4. The Breath O’ Love
5. A Knowing Young Touch
6. Ragtimely Love
7. Travelin’ In The Dar
8. Brooklyn
9. The Moon Will Rise
10. If I Came To You

The Children – Rebirth (1968)

Artist: The Children
Title: Rebirth
Year: 1968
Format: LP
Label: Atco

The Children came from San Antonio, Texas and the first side of their only album consists of pleasant psych pop songs with female vocals and orchestra, light hearted and uplifting, the second side isn’t on the same level, the exception is the magnificent “Pictoral” with distorted acid guitar. (mekkipuur RYM)

Track Listing

1. Daybreak
2. Maypole
3. Don’t Ever Lose It
4. Beautiful
5. Sitting On A Flower
6. I’ll Be Your Sunshine
7. Military School
8. I Got Involved
9. Pictorial
10. Dreaming Slave

Pride – Pride (1970)

Artist: Pride
Title: Pride
Year: 1970
Format: LP
Label: Warner Brothers

This is perhaps the most unknown and most unusual album produced by David Axelrod – and in my view the best. Like “Mass in F-Minor” it is quite short and little information about it can be found.

The lyrics are from David’s son Michael, singing is by Noony Ricketts who played with Love for a short time and the cast of the session musicians includes Don Randi.

The music is typical Westcoast Psych with spanish influences. If you like Love’s “Forever Changes” (who does not???) it will appeal to you. Nice record! (acidvisions)

Track Listing

1. Proud Sorrow
2. A Hope
3. The Death Of Juan Diaz
4. The Truth
5. In The Wilderness
6. Worthless Pleasures
7. Returning Home
8. Song Of The Pirate
   

The Racket Squad – Corners Of Your Mind (1969)

Artist: The Racket Squad
Title: Corners Of Your Mind
Year: 1969
Format: LP
Label: Jubilee

Corners Of Your Mind is a solid psych LP, most of the songs are originals, with a couple of covers, a decent take on Hendrix’s “Little Wing” and a super solid cover of “Get Out My Life Woman.”

There’s a totally silly Popeye influenced reprise of “Woman” but other than that everything on here is solid, nice production on the drums, which tend to be hanging out in the left channel, as well as good sound on the organ and guitars.

“You Turn Me On” and “Sweet Little Smoke” are suitably psychedelic with slower tempos and distinctly 60s lyrics like “Sweet Little Smoke please set me free, let me sail out on a marshmellow sea…”

I especially dig the way the last two minutes of “Smoke” flows with the bass, tambourine and drums along with the wordless “La La La” singing. “Suburban Life” is a bit harder, with a beat that sounds a bit like “Jungle Fever” from the Chakachas and some nice fuzzy guitar. (meltingpot)

Track Listing

1. Ain’t Nobody Gonna Love You
2. Sweet Little Smoke
3. Get Out Of My Life Woman
4. Suburban Life
5. Get Out Of My Life Woman (Reprise) Popeye
6. Corners Of Your Mind
7. You Turn Me On
8. Little Wing
9. The Minstrel
10. Maybe Tomorrow [bonus]
11. I’ll Never Forget Your Love [bonus]
    

The Racket Squad – The Racket Squad (1968)

Artist: The Racket Squad
Title: The Racket Squad
Year: 1968
Format: LP
Label: Jubilee

You ever wonder what The Vogues would sound like as a Psychedelic band? Well this is it. That is because The Racket Squad was the backing band for The Vogues for their “Your The One” days. A few years after, the band decided make their own Lp and a pretty decent debut came out of it.

The Opening track “The Loser” is a really trippy keyboard number, with even some wah-wah in it! This was not a bunch of 19 year old kids making this Lp as you can see from the cover these guys were already in their late 20′s and early 30′s and that experince and maturity can be heard throughout this LP. Most of the tracks on this LP are covers.

Their version of “Let it All Hang Out” is almost better than the original. They also “Psych” up tracks like “We’ve Got A Groovy Thing Goin” and “No Fair At All”. A very good LP by a band that should have made it bigger. (PsychedelicGuy RYM)

Track Listing

1. The Loser
2. Let’s Dance To The Beat Of My Heart
3. (Just Like) Romeo And Juliet
4. We’ve Got A Groovy Thing Goin’
5. Higher Than High
6. Hung Up
7. Ode To Billie Joe
8. Sunshine Man
9. No Fair At All
10. Little Red Wagon
11. Let It Out (Let It All Hang Out)
12. That’s How Much I Love My Baby [bonus]
13. Movin’ In [bonus]
    

The Victims Of Chance – The Victims Of Chance (1969)

Artist: The Victims Of Chance
Title: The Victims Of Chance
Year: 1969
Format: LP
Label: Crestview

Brought To You Courtesy Of The BIG “N”
The Victims Of Chance were an American group featuring a man named Johnny Kitchen. Kitchen, an enigmatic figure, is believed to have been Canadian and to have been a part of the Canadian outfits Crazy People and The Blues Train.

He eventually turned up in Los Angeles and was involved in the recording of the first album by onetime Frank Zappa cohort Larry “Wild Man” Fischer (see June 15, 2011 post). The true identity of the pseudonymous Johnny Kitchen is not known.

The Victims Of Chance LP was recorded in late 1968/early 1969 and was released in the US on Crestview, the label also responsible for the Bob & Earl LP and the Pretty People (see March 13, 2010 post) The music is a mix of blues, folk, prog, and psychedelia. (J.J. Hildreth)

Track Listing

1. Victims Of Chance, Part 1 (Instrumental)
2. Victims Of Chance, Part 2 (vocal by Torrin Quinn)
3. Adventures In Time
4. Break Away
5. Over & Out (Coda, Side One)
6. Tuesday’s Victim
7. L.A. To Frisco – Four Eleven Flat
8. Funky Sunshine
9. Devil’s Prayer
   

The Crazy People – Bedlam (1968)

Artist: The Crazy People
Title: Bedlam
Year: 1968
Format: LP
Label: Condor

Top caliber Canadian exploito … Seriously, that’s about all the bibliographical info I can provide on this album. Released on the Canadian Condor label (which released an eclectic mix of MOR and rock materials), 1968′s “Bedlam” was produced by Jean Daniel and Jack Millman (the latter was a Vancouver-based television weatherman).

There are no performance credits leaving you to conclude that this was a studio enterprise slapped together in the hopes of capitalizing on prevailing musical tastes.

Musically the collection was all over the place offering up a manic mixture of pysch-propelled sound collages, song snippets (“Winchester Cathedral” buried in ‘Head Games and Other Assorted Crap’) spoken word segments (‘After Six’), backward tapes and other studio effects. It made for a cool album to listen to with good headphones and a couple of beers.

Epitomized by the lead off track “Parade At the Funny Farm” the results included a little bit of everything including a melody that borrowed heavily from Sam and Dave’s “Hold On, I’m Comin” mixed with what sounded like Wild Man Fisher vocal samples.

The second half of “Head Games And Other Assorted Crap” somehow managed to mix a wonderful Association-styled top-40 melody with a wild mixture of channel hoping sound effects. “Head Amusement” could have easily been lifted from an early Steppenwolf LP. Just to make things interesting the instrumentals ‘Raunchy Boog-a-loo’ and ‘The Truth’ had distinctive funky feels (“Raunchy” was one of the standout tracks).

Sure, there was plenty of wasted space here. “Head Job” was a boring spoken word/telephone conversation segment. The goofy and very dated ‘Happy Academy’ and ‘Trans Luv Airlines’ would have sounded at home on a Firesign Theater LP.

Still, one of the better exploito LPs I’ve heard and a fun, if occasionally frustrating listen experience … if these guys had let a little more of their song craft show through the effects rampage then this could have been a major find.

So much for facts. There are multiple theories out there with respect to who these guys were. Some folks have linked the album to Wild Man Fisher.

Seems doubtful to me. Others claim the mysterious Johnny Kitchen who seems to have been responsible for a mid-to-late 1960s mini-industry releasing psych-exploito albums by a host of groups including The Blues Train, The Trio of Tyme, Victims Of Chance, etc. was the brains behind the LP. Who knows. (Bad Cat)

Track Listing

1. Parade At The Funny Farm
2. Head Amusement
3. Raunchy Boog-A-Loo
4. After Six
5. The Truth
6. Head Games And Other Assorted Crap
7. Head Job
8. Happy Academy
9. Trans Luv Airlines
10. Let’s Split