Vancouver City... there are so many stars
Now Playing: Timothy Leary "You Can Be Anyone" LP
Topic: Minor change or comment

Thus sang Ptarmigan many moons ago, and rightly too. I have developed a certain fascination with the Vancouver scene over the years, in fact one of the very first "obscure" psych LPs I ever bought from Paul Major was the first Mother Tuckers Yellow Duck LP (a $20 title a the time). Picking up the rare pre-LP version of "One Ring Jane" on Duck yesterday closed a cycle of sorts, though I'm not sure what kind or why. In any event, this most interesting freak scene could have been what Boston failed to become, i e: the next San Francisco. I'm far from an expert on the subject, but would venture that Vancouver was in the crosshairs for a music business make-over around 1968-69. Learning fast, the industry knew to look for a sizable town with a strong regional influence, a substantial college student body, and an active local music scene with genuine freak bands that were locally respected. The icing of the cake, and the hard nut to crack which I think really killed Boss-Town, was a credible commercial group who could sell millions of records but still be considered underground. This is what the Airplane did for SF, and the Doors did for LA. No band did it for Boston because those band couldn't write hits!

My belief is that the band poised for this key role in Vancouver were the Collectors, and I also think that the relative failure of the Collectors is what caused the music biz to leave Vancouver after only a half-hearted try, as evident in the remarkable rarity of the second Mother Tuckers LP as an example. Had the Collectors lured the buyers with their ambitious artrock it would have been different, but the basic problem was the same--there was no "Light My Fire" or "Somebody To Love" in there.

And so the Collectors filled cut-out bins and a very promising band like Mother Tuckers were left to fade out by Capitol management, and true freaks like My Indole Ring, Mock Duck or Seeds Of Time didn't even have time to get the record contracts waiting upon them if the signs for Vancouver's many stars had been right. 

That's my theory anyway. Here's a bunch of intense video material to back it up:

Some of the great Vancouver acid rock footage that was on Youtube has been removed (like the live Mother Tucker's show), but I was startled to find a sequence of My Indole Ring which is completely different from the old CBC/Retinal Circus material. This is hosted by Lulu, who expounds on 'psych rock' and 'acid' before the band kicks in. You can tell the difference instantly because the singer isn't wearing the weird hat he had on the other clips. As a bonus, I think the sound may actually be better than the Retinal Circus show (which I think was used for the Shadoks release). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dzL12pTxiw

Serious interview with Country Joe explaining hippies, 1968... and a bunch more looks at Vancouver's emerging freak scene... brief clips from the local Be-In '67.
https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D1kGq5gcK4sk&h=FAQGTUMed&enc=AZOzo0dkogIxfhkETGpGOid6htJMAxIps710qh5dg7v5RL_2TAwGUmkZYqM4ZdXrlrB7YT0_lSWO3lZ9MXp1LXKdRtEz-akqVglhWNYWeg88A8R3lwAFgyNMt7Ywb4Z78fSDwycoRKPMFB4oxE8rnVtGhpd-XSFjaW9spEUB70Sl_w&s=1

This one has a live performance by the Northwest Company doing long raga fuzz rave-up versions of "Hard To Cry" and "Get Away From It All"... not. Alas, we get the opposite of that, with an awful blue-eyed soul number introduced as "their latest hit". You have been warned. On the upside are 5-minute interviews with Vanilla Fudge (not too common) and Jimi Hendrix. Again, presumably all unique material to "Let's Go"/CBC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1doYS7rnac

 

 

Inmates & Elevators
Now Playing: Avatar (movie)
Topic: Minor change or comment

Lest I forget, just a note to mention that I was contacted recently by a Californian who had come across one of my 13th Floor Elevators pages when researching his old '60s band. Here's what he (John R.) wrote:

I was the singer for "The Inmates" (later named "Sky") and I saw on your site a shot of the poster of "The Elevators" gig on September 30 1966 at the San Bruno Armory. We opened for them that night and I've been trying to find that poster along with a couple others - Moby Grape at Kings Beach Bowl September 2 1967 and The Grassroots at The Coconut Grove in Santa Cruz in '67 or '68. We were high school kids and pretty thrilled to be playing with those cats.

Due to their appearance on one of the most coveted Elevators posters (see image here), the Inmates have secured a place for themselves in underground rock history for the foreseeable future. Ínformation about the supporting bands has a certain contextual value, and in the case of San Bruno nothing has been known previously about the Inmates or the other local band listed, the Westminster V.

I felt that their story was worth preserving at a more suitable spot than the Acid Archives blog and forwarded it to my colleague Chris at the great Garage Hangover site, where the Inmates should fit right in. I'll add a link to the piece once it's up. One very cool detail I must share right away is the fact that the Inmates actually played "You're Gonna Miss Me" as part of their standard set list!

Thanks John R for getting in touch, and keep an eye out for more on the Inmates, and maybe a bit on other local bands too.  

In observance of the Psychedelic Calendar
Now Playing: Have a wild guess
Topic: Minor change or comment

 

Limited hard-cover edition reaches limit
Now Playing: Home-made sampler of Sky Saxon '70s stuff
Topic: Minor change or comment

It took a little while, or 3 years to be precise, but the special hard-back edition of the Acid Archives book is now completely out of print. This was a limited, individually numbered edition of 100 copies, signed by me on the title page. For the record, the hard-cover variants break down like this:

#1-25 are 'lettered', meaning that they are denoted by letters 'A' through 'Z' rather than numbers, with 'X' omitted. These copies were intended primarily for contributors and close friends, but a couple were sold to collectors. With the book came a bonus CD-R with 'mystery' music, which was 23 songs selected from obscure LPs featured in the book.

#26-75 are numbered in standard fashion, and sold to collectors and Acid Archives fans. The bonus 'mystery' CD-R described above was included.

#76-100 are numbered in standard fashion and sold commercially. The only difference is that the 'mystery' music CD-R was not included. 

All 100 copies are autographed and numbered by hand by the author. The copies were individually priced depending on how many were left and what mailing arrangments could be made, but $90-100 was a frequently logged price.

The very last copy I had is now sold, and the hard-back will never be reprinted. Next time you'll see it will be in the second hand market.

Thanks all for the interest. I'm noticing the regular soft-cover version is getting harder to find as well, we may have to do something about that. 

Enlist with the Strawberry Alarm Clock
Now Playing: Milan-Torino
Topic: Minor change or comment

I've probably spent more time defending Strawberry Alarm Clock than any other group on the planet, and it's good to see how the perception of the band has finally begun to change, from the idiotic misconception of them as a "bubblegum" or "exploitation" group into the actual realization that they were a real rock band, grown out of one of the best garage bands of the westcoast (Thee Sixpence), and they proved this for anyone with ears on two outstanding LPs of melodic SoCal psychedelia.

All that said, the vintage SAC (first 3 LPs) offer troublingly little for the avid fan/collector to go out on manic hunts for. Only a couple of non-LP 45 tracks, no withdrawn records or small label discs of unexplained origin, no rare mono promo or quad variants, and a gloomy lack of variation for the foreign picture sleeve 45s (either the "Incense" LP photo or dull title sleeves; the Italian "Tomorrow" is a rare exception). After getting said "Tomorrow" PS and the All-American pre-hit pressing of the "Incense" 45 I figured there wasn't much more, especially since I've been tracking the band for 30 years.

But surprise, surprise, my eyes fell on this odd LP format record, pressed up without sleeve and never commercially released:

This was intended for broadcast on the US Navy's own radio station, and includes ad spots aimed at sailors and sailoresses urging them to sign up for long contracts with subsidized education and whatever. It is narrated by the ubiqitous Dick Clark, and features, indeed, the Strawberry Alarm Clock. Alas, this isn't a live music performance, but rather a short interview where Dick Clark speaks with SAC "leader" Mark Weitz and the other members introduce themselves with name and instrument. The band is referred to as a "quintet" at this point, and judging by the selections played I would place it in early 1968--there are LP tracks from the 1st album but none from the 2nd album, and the most recent 45 "Tomorrow" is heard. Interestingly, "Incense & Peppermints" is not played.

The program runs some 15 minutes and includes four SAC songs in what seems to be stereo LP versions. The sound is remarkably good and a little different from the familiar UNI sound, but this is surely due to different manufacturing circumstances and nothing else. So, you get some mighty fine SAC music that you've heard before, and maybe 90 seconds of chatter that you haven't heard before, and the added bonus of Dick Clark praising the fine young Santa Barbara men in all kinds of ways, "Progressive band"; "the now sound" etc. I can dig it.

Now, flip the disc over and what do you get? Another program for Navy radio broadcast again featuring the Strawberry Alarm Clock! Dick Clark and the band greet each other as old friends, and this time the members reveal their ages (Weitz is oldest, born '45) and engage in a philosophical discourse on what genre their music belongs to. Apparently plenty of people referred to them as "jazz-rock"! This was probably taped shortly after or even at the same session as the program above, since there is no new material (from the 2nd LP) performed. So I'm guessing Spring '68 for the entire disc as a "release", which meant distribution to various Navy bases around the world. How many copies were pressed? How much did the band get paid? We do not know.

While it would have been more exciting with some live music or maybe more indepth interviews, this rarity will suffice as a needed dark horse in the early SAC catalog.

The mysterious appeal of the sleeveless
Now Playing: Nightshadows "Live At The Spot"
Topic: Minor change or comment
.

 

 

Steve Drake / Kaczorowski fully exposed
Now Playing: Joe Lee Kirkpatrick "Turning Point Testimony"
Topic: Minor change or comment

I mentioned the Oxpetals scoop long ago, but didn't get around to updating the tabular breakdown until now. Isn't it a beauty? All figured out by diligent and knowledgable internetters taken in by the strange magic of Steve Kaczorowski, aka Steve Drake, the king of karaoke rock!

Get the full and unbelievable low-down here. 

STEVE DRAKE BAND: “Cold Sweat” (Odyssey, 1976) 

TRACK LISTED AS	RECORDING USED
Maid In Heaven	BE BOP DELUXE: Maid In Heaven, 1975
Earthworm	STACKRIDGE: Earthworm, 1975
Sign Your Name	BE BOP DELUXE: Jean Cocteau, 1975
Glimpses Of The Future	OXPETALS: Declaration Of Oneness, 1970
Greenburg, Glicstein, Charles, David Smith and Jones	CRYAN' SHAMES: Greenburg, Glickstein, Charles, David Smith and Jones (slowed down), 1969
Rainbow Peddler	ORPHEUS: Rainbow Peddler (written by Steve Martin), 1971
Cold Sweat/Don't Cry Mother	OXPETALS: Don't Cry Mother, 1970
Do You See Now	OXPETALS: Down From The Mountain, 1970
Sister Seagull	BE BOP DELUXE: Sister Seagull, 1975
Dirty Old Town	LUCIFER’S FRIEND: Dirty Old Town, 1974
Happy In The Lord	STACKRIDGE: Happy In The Lord, 1975

 

A retrospective tribute to Marcus' "House Of Tracks"
Now Playing: Marcus on cassette dub
Topic: Minor change or comment

During the slow but steady grind to transfer anything worthwhile from old cassettes to WAVs and MP3s on my hard disk, I ran across an old Maxell C90 that is charged with lysergia. Not to sound too much like Grandpa Simpson, but the history of this tape is strongly linked to some substantial changes in my life that are still being felt today.

The year was 1988, I was doing college but spent as little time at 'campus' as possible, preferring instead to hang out with my psychedelic colleagues in the newly formed Lumber Island Acid Crew. Through Mr Subliminal we had hooked up with the now legendary record dealer Paul Major, whose mail-order catalog was entering a phase of rapid expansion. We marvelled over Paul's informative and clever rants on obscure LPs none of us had heard of before, and with frequent intervals cash or trade deals were set up with Paul, who was as genial on the phone as his list indicated. After I mentioned to him that my top want was The Deep "Psychedelic Moods" Paul promptly came up with a stereo original in just a few weeks time--although as rare then as it is now, he actually underpriced it.

Another thing he offered was to tape his rarer or lesser known records to the extent that he had time. I was just shedding my collection of Doors picture sleeve 45s, several of which I already had sold to a DJ guy from Los Angeles while at Plastic Passion in London (a story in itself). Knowing that Paul dug the Doors I offered him a 45 for each tape, and he went for it right away. I checked off a few things I had been curious about and the tapes duly arrived shortly after. All of it was worth hearing, but what really did a number on my head was the the cassette seen below, with Marcus "House Of Trax". As I recall we deliberately held back playing the tape until the next psychedelic session, which came about soon enough. There were several of us doing good quality blotter, and at an early stage the Marcus tape was put in the deck.

I can still recall the bewilderment in my semi-lysergic head as the swirling keyboards, feedback guitars and trippy vocals came on. One must bear in mind that this was 1988, and private pressings were still an almost unknown phenomenon, for which there was no real frame of reference. My view of psychedelic music was traditional, even if I had begun chewing on the Bobb Trimble and DR Hooker side of things. What boggled my mind with Marcus was the fact that it was A) clearly a 'modern' production from a multi-channel studio, but B) at the same time totally psychedelic. I was familiar with 'neo-psych' which was like twee Pink Floyd imitations, but this Marcus record sounded real--being an acidhead I felt I could identify another acidhead with some certainty. This raised the question: who the hell recorded full-blown psychedelia in the late '70s? And of course: are there more records like this? As the private press collector scene exploded in the late '80s-early '90s the answer to the latter question would be a resounding Yes, to my and everyone else's delight.

But that Marcus record, man, there was more to it than the realization that psychedelic music was a timeless phenomenon. Its sentiments, as presented via Marcus' lyrics and voice, seemed to align perfectly to my state as a new-fangled psychedelicist. There were messages running through it which I immediately understood--"Tripping In Time" was easy enough to grasp, but "The City Of Inbetween" and its rejection of dichotomies in favor of ambiguity was exactly the kind of unorthodox wisdom you aquire during those first few trips. The arc of Side 1 reaches an appropriate LSD peak with "Sweet Inspiration", where an otherworldy warmth blends with life-affirming melancholy into the kind of complex emotional cluster that awaits inside the trip space, if nowhere else.

One of Marcus' greatest achievements may be his ability to present the psychedelic consciousness as an open space that anyone, more or less, can enter. He rejects the egocentric pull of acid creativity and insists on the availability of radical insight and spiritual love for all, much like newly converted psychedelicists tend to do. It's all there in "Sweet Inspiration"--the peak moment of celestial love, the insistence upon the value of the trip, the exhortation for one to join with him and all the others that have opened the doors to Innerspace.

Sweet inspiration
Knocking at your door
Come on in
There's room for more

As a psychedelic philosopher and weekend buddhist I don't really believe in coincidences, except on a very small scale. There couldn't have been a more propitious time or a better LP for me to come across as a sophomore hallucinogen student than Marcus, no matter that only 75 people in the world had heard of it at the time. During the year that followed I would set aside a "Marcus moment" for each psychedelic journey, during which I pulled out the Maxell tape, located an available ghetto blaster or Sony freestyle, and went inside the "House Of Trax" for 30 minutes of private headphone meditation. My fellow Acid Crew members were fully aware and slightly amused by this ritual, not least since Marcus' greatness was far from agreed upon. But as my testimony here hopefully shows, there was more to my infatuation than just the musical quality in a good/bad sense.

Things continued like this for a year or two until one day my psychedelic self had matured enough that Marcus' role as teacher for the newly initiated seemed less important. I still loved the LP, and I still love the LP in 2014, but the special part it played in my life was a thing of the past, brought forth today by coming across this old C90 cassette. The Lumber Island Acid Crew kept tripping and a new musical talisman would soon present itself to replace Marcus, once more with a perfect fit for where my mind and soul were at the time, circa 1991. This new talisman was Spirit Of Love by C.O.B, but that's a whole other story for another time...

 

Los Angeles -- Open City
Now Playing: Jarvo Runga
Topic: Minor change or comment

I picked up an obscure '60s underground paper from LA called 'Open City' and as often there were some curious surprises in there, such as the only review of the ACID SYMPHONY 3-LP set that I've ever seen. Some other interesting reviews, check it out. In addition there was a long and respectful discussion of Corman's "The Trip", an interview with the US Kaleidoscope, a syndicated interview with the Doors, a review of the Airplane at the Hollywood Bowl, and an instalment in Charles Bukowski's "Dirty Old Man" series of short stories that would ultimately be assembled for his debut book. But this was as early as '67 and the Buk a complete unknown. Cool paper, odd that I haven't run across it earlier.

Gwydion wholesale
Now Playing: Jelly Bean Bandits "Caterpillar's Eye"
Topic: Minor change or comment

Opinions may differ as to the aesthetic value of Gwydion's music, but surely every private press collector with a heart must admire this full-page ad. Knowing his audience, the man didn't advertise in Rolling Stone but instead the occult digest FATE, which more than a decade earlier had run a few pioneering LSD articles among its stories of werewolves and UFOs.

The wholesale price is quite competitive. Thanks to avid Acid Archives reader Ken B for this one! 

 

 

Seeds go out with a bhang
Topic: Minor change or comment

The long-running mystery of the last "real" Seeds line-up which did the two MGM 45s in 1970 was finally cleared up via Jeff Jarema's liner notes for the double 45 reissue recently. In case you missed it, Sky Saxon and Daryl Hooper recruited a completely new band with no ties to the various '68-69 players. The new guys were a Pasadena band known as Solid Mist who jumped aboard not knowing where the Saxon magic might take them, although the end result was limited to a number of live gigs and those two 45s. I refer to the reissue 7-inch and my indepth Sky Saxon page for details.

The main purpose of this post is to announce that I now own a copy of "Did He Die", the 2nd MGM 45 and one which I doubted I would be able to score, since it's as rare as some Back From The Grave discs! It landed here sounding more intense than any repros, as 45s tend to do. I also noted that "Love In A Summer Basket" was the designated airplay pick.

The other thing I wanted to share was the discovery (by Richard MJ of Flashback), finally, of a period media reference to this last Seeds line-up including band member names. The reason no one has utilized this info before is because it appeared only in an obscure publication called Entertainment World, which had a few issues around 1970. This brief news item would have been a real scoop a few years ago, and is still worth passing on today.

 

Flour Zine Flower Scene
Now Playing: Ithaca "A Game For All Who Know"
Topic: Minor change or comment

I finally found time to scan and document my prized copies of Flower Scene, an independent British music magazine which existed 1967-68 and is rarely seen today. The Lama Workshop has now been expanded with a Flower Scene introduction, content index and some scans for two early issues. Skip Bifferty in the flesh, gov'nor! While waiting for the page to load, here's a small but rare shot of Paper Blitz Tissue who had the great "Boy Meets Girl" 45 (Chocolate Soup vol 2).

 

Name That Tune legacy
Now Playing: Midwinter "Waters Of Sweet Sorrow"
Topic: Minor change or comment

The contest is finished and the prizes are being distributed, but late-comers may still be interested in the Name That Tune contest, the music part in particular. The web-pages will be left running and the music remains downloadble, viz:

Name That Tune contest finished !
Now Playing: Darius on Chartmaker
Topic: Minor change or comment

Things have been more strange than usual around these parts, as I fractured my hipbone last week and was taken to hospital, where they shot me full of morphine & then, between nodding-off, I checked my surf pad (gotta love Wi-Fi equipped hospitals) only to find that Lou Reed had moved on to, well, wherever a Lou Reed goes when it dies. Reclining in a hospital bed with industrial strength opiates running through my system while thinking of Lou Reed seemed like an unusually memorable event among the dead days of Nordic autumn. They allowed me home after a few days and sent me off with some interesting pharmaceuticals which are currently being evaluated. I'm not really a big narcotics fan, but it if it's clean and nearly free, why not enjoy it while it lasts... and now I really don't care anymore... you can aalll go take a waallk...

Actually, that's not true. What I really came to tell you about is the final results of the massive Name That Tune contest that we kicked off 5-6 months ago. The NTT website has been updated with all the results and winners ('Crazy Juan' in Spain won by a thin margin after having named 15 of the 23 tracks: a very impressive feat in view of the level of difficulty). Of these 23 tracks, only two remained unidentified after the dust had settled.

 

So, winners, track lists and comments can be found here: http://www.lysergia.com/NameThatTune/lamaNameThatTune.htm

Name That Tune enters the final lap!
Now Playing: Chris, Chris & Lee
Topic: Minor change or comment

Today we have precisely 1 month left before the doors close on that most exciting of contests, the psychedelic NAME THAT TUNE!

You've seen it on the TV show, you've heard it on the radio -- if not, here's the full low-down:
http://www.lysergia.com/NameThatTune/lamaNameThatTune.htm

Enter now and compete for the extraordinary prizes and even some good old US dollars!

Save Wild Basin finally located
Now Playing: Pink Floyd live San Diego 1971
Topic: Minor change or comment

Since time immemorial I have been haunted by the mystery of two obscure vintage 45s for which even the tiniest bit of information refused to surface. Theories as to them being modern hoax recordings, or unreleased, or maybe not from the USA, came in vogue as time went and positively no one I asked seemed to know anything. Recently, after 20+ years, I sort of gave up on the quest, since not even the riches of internet yielded any clues.

And maybe that was just what was needed, because a few months ago, in rapid succession, I found the whole shebang of release data for both 45s. I will return to the other no-longer-mysterious 45 in a later post and focus on the second one of the two here, as I now have the actual rekkid in my hairy hands. It is "Save Wild Basin" by a group called Sonstar, and like almost everyone familiar with it, I first ran across it on the enigmatic 'Good Roots' garage/psych compilation from Austria c1982. The comp contained no data and in fact managed to mis-spell (deliberately?) the group's name as 'Sonostar', which may have contributed to my long delay in finding it.

A mighty fine piece of music it is anyway, energetic hippie-folk with an advanced guitar arrangement and soaring vocals that fit the theme of the lyrics perfectly. The band turned out to be a quartet from Austin TX and the single was released as part of a campaign to save a piece of rural land and a basin from explotiation. It came with a picture sleeve that also could be used as a mailing envelope, and contained a 2-sided insert. Very few people have heard the B-side "Golden Eagle", which is a quite good rock number with a full electric setting; it's probably one step too close to mainstream FM rock to work on underground ears, but does confirm the quality of Sonstar. Another collector who was in contact with the group learned that they had a major label deal in progress, at which point their album master tapes were lost; at least that's what the band claims. Too bad, because one can imagine a pretty damn good LP coming from these cats.

The 45 was released as late as 1976, making it almost contemporary when it was picked for bootlegging on 'Good Roots'. This places it in the fine company of other mid-70s tracks such as Neil Norman's "Phaser Laser" (1977) and Scorpion's "I'm Only Human" (1974) on that most peculiar compilation. In any event, the Sonstar quest is complete and I am very happy for the closure.

You wonder about the campaign? Well, it turned out successfully--wild basin was saved and is probably still there.

 

30 Years of Being Ugly!
Now Playing: Richard Kneeland LP
Topic: Minor change or comment

A note now to champion the 30-year anniversary of the leading '60s-oriented fanzine in the world, Mike Stax' UGLY THINGS. Those who know the zine well are likely to have noticed the grand celebrations recently held in honor of this great publication, with everyone from '60s pop stars to '90s neo-moptops paying tribute.

As testified in some of the articles I've written about the garage scene of the mid-1980s, Ugly Things has been a big deal to me personally, first inspiring and guiding me as a moptopped teenager, and more recently allowing space for several of my reviews and articles (the Mel Lyman piece in #22 was my first, the Perth County Conspiracy in #30 the most recent). Founder and editor Mike Stax has been encouraging throughout, and as you might guess, becoming a writer for a magazine that had been a formative influence in one's youth is a slightly surreal experience.

Most timely, the new Ugly Things issue is out, as big, comprehensive and cool as ever. I managed to close a cycle by reviewing a retrospective LP with the infamous Stockholm garage punks the Crimson Shadows, i e: the same guys that I idolized (and soon got to know) at the very same time that I first discovered Ugly Things magazine! Whether it's 1985 or 2013 doesn't matter, Mike Stax and his creation make their benign presence felt in my life.

Akashic Readings from The Eternal Now (part 1)
Now Playing: Paul Revere & The Raiders old mix-tape
Topic: Minor change or comment

As I mentioned earlier I used to run The Eternal Now, a webpage column (or blog) long before blogs existed, and over its 7-8 years in existence quite a bit of esoteric information appeared there. The page is still up and will remain so, as a kind of Akashic Library, but I intend to recycle some of the more interesting tidbits from there into this current blog. Not all of it will be immediately Acid Archives-related, but all of it will be immediately psychedelic.

from The Eternal Now, 2004:
...Moving upwards and then to the right we end up in Oakland, where a bunch of heads known as DIRTY FILTHY MUD held the population hostage with strange sci-fi music and even stranger behavior... their "Forest Of Black" 45 is one of the freakiest and most highly rated acid music 45s of all time, and thanks to info provided by Dave Baldwin I am able to reveal the following: 1) the blurry color design of their art sleeve is in fact a flashlight shining through a hippie shirt; 2) the band cut a whole bunch of unreleased tunes, incl an 11-minute version of "Forest Of Black" with acid guitar leads throughout... aargh... 3) the band were buddies with none other than the 13th FLOOR ELEVATORS during their Bay Area stay (Fall'66), and the amazing oscillator fx on "Forest" were in fact a tribute to TOMMY HALL's psychedelic jug... speaking of the Elevators, the wellknown "Avalon '66" tape that has been bootlegged by everyone and his attorney since 1978 derives from a broadcast of old ballroom live tapes on KSAN in the Bay Area; first mention of the Elevators tape I've seen comes from early 1978, suggesting the broadcast happened in late 1977; anyone know for sure?... the Elevators were just one of many vintage psych-era tapes broadcast by KSAN, and despite being traded for 25 years now most of these have never been properly released and they include killer stuff like '66 ragarock by the FINAL SOLUTION... [since then, the Avalon recording has of course been legitimately released on the British box-sets, via a tape provided by me to Elevators caretaker Paul Drummond]

Phantasia & Phiphth Pipe Dream
Now Playing: Kris Kylven & Syb-Sonic "Forgotten Souls" xlnt psybient
Topic: Minor change or comment

A couple of quick but vital points... one of the oft-mentioned but hardly ever seen stickers that was supposed to come with the classic Fifth Pipe Dream sampler finally popped up, not exactly a feast for the eyes but cool to finally see. 

I think there is another one in another color, and there are definitely promo stickers in the same 'series' for Tripsichord Music Box and other Katz sweatshop acidrockers. 
 

---

Regarding Phantasia, noted collector Juan in Spain points out that his copy of the rather severe Graal that is their first demo LP comes with a lyric sheet insert. This is not mentioned in the Acid Archives book, and I'm unsure whether all or just some of the copies found included this lyric sheet. The tracking story of Phantasia, if I remember correctly, is that the main Ton Um Ton guy in Austria found the band some time around 1990, and extracted a few remaining copies of the 2-sided and 1-sided demo albums, which were then sold to well-heeled European collectors. Very few copies have been seen since, and in view of the reported 25-copy pressing, won't be seen either. You know the music, of course... here's side 1 of the lyric insert so you can sing along to "Transparent Face".

The Name That Tune 2013 Contest has begun !
Now Playing: Juventus celebrating a new scudetto
Topic: Minor change or comment

*** NAME THAT TUNE UPDATE ***
 
Following last week's Lesser Mysteries, we have now unveiled the full trip of the Greater Mysteries. The Name That Tune website contains all the vital information and music you need to join the contest. $100s of dollars and some great records can be yours, if you can Name That Tune!

http://www.lysergia.com/NameThatTune/lamaNameThatTune.htm