Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500: #250 - 226

Welcome back to Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500, in which I count my personal fave psych songs from 500 all the way down to #1! Today, let's see what's seeing sounds and smelling colors from 250 to 226...

250. Jefferson Airplane- "She Has Funny Cars" (1967), in which Jefferson Airplane express the belief that owning several cars with pop-up chassis is really what makes a lady attractive. 

Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500: #425 - 401

Welcome back to Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500, in which I count my personal fave psych songs from 500 all the way down to #1! Today, let's see what's attending the love-in from 425 to 401...

425. Os Mutantes- "Bat Macumba" (1968), in which mid-sixties Batman Fever reaches all the way to Brazil.

Review: 'Ready Steady Go!: The Weekend Starts Here'

The most tragic consequence of the shortsightedness of the early television era is that scant footage from the 173 episodes of Ready Steady Go! survives. Only nine complete episodes, one Motown special, and a handful of clips remain. That anyone would have wipe 120-or-so hours of The Beatles, The Supremes, the Stones, The Kinks, The Animals, Martha and the Vandellas, The Zombies, Dusty Springfield, The Ronettes, The Four Tops, Small Faces, or series mascots The Who performing at the height of their powers is criminal, and the pain only stings harder when you read Andy Neill’s new book Ready Steady Go!: The Weekend Starts Here.

Review: The Beatstalkers' 'Scotland's No. 1 Beat Group'

The Beatstalkers were an odd duck in Britain’s mid-sixties beat scene. Were they a middle-of-the-road pop group like The Tremeloes? Sometimes. Were they aggressive, modish noise merchants like The Who? They were when they were at their best. Were they purveyors of twee quirk? They certainly were when a pre-fame David Bowie was providing their material. Were they Scotland’s No. 1 beat group? Well, they were if you trust the title of Sommor’s new compilation of everything The Beatstalkers recorded.

Review: The Fox's 'For Fox Sake'

Had the breaks been a little better, The Fox might now be spoken of in the same breath as Small Faces, The Creation, The Move, The Action, Traffic, and the other mod and/or psych bands they resemble. Alas, the Brighton quintet only made one album, because as frontman Steve Brayne relates in the liner notes of a vinyl reissue of the For Fox Sake LP, their management “poached” Black Sabbath and decided to put all of its eggs in that gloomy basket. Timing might have something to do with The Fox’s failure since their mid-sixties sound was so out of step the times when they released their one and only LP in 1970.

Review: The Action's 'Shadows & Reflections: The Complete Recordings 1964-1968'

The Action was one of the best R&B bands the swinging UK produced, and to those who might have thought Townshend’s feedback waves or Steve Marriott’s elfin screaming were too extreme, The Action were probably the best. They were the slick Motown to The Who and Small Faces’ vicious Stax, yet despite having one of the era’s best vocalists in silken throated Reg King, The Action never achieved an iota of the success of their more popular peers in the Mod scene. Why that may have been has been theorized over before, so let’s just focus on the scant but wonderful music The Action produced during their few years, because that music is collected quite completely on Shadows & Reflections: The Complete Recordings 1964-1968. 

Review: Vinyl Reissue of The Action's 'Rolled Gold'

Do your best to wrap your brain around The Action’s lack of widespread success. Reg King was possibly the UK’s finest smooth soul singer, several members of the band were capable of writing great songs, and they had George Martin in their corner. Perhaps The Action’s early singles were too reliant on previously recorded material and they adapted too late to the age of composing bands. There were certainly management issues. Whatever the case was, The Action made some of the best Mod-infused soul records of the mid-sixties, and when they started producing their own material, there were on the path to creating one of the best albums of 1967: the year that gets my vote for pop’s best one. 

Alas, the band’s shaky foundations crumbled before The Action could finish the LP they intended to call Rolled Gold. George Martin’s interest was never particularly keen and he decided to end his relationship with the band… though he first managed a characteristically grand production for “In My Dream”, the one song that progressed beyond the demo stage. Reg King left, and the remnants reformed as Mighty Baby. The Rolled Gold recordings were shelved for nearly 30 years until Dig the Fuzz Records put them out as Brain (The Lost Recordings 1967/68) in 1995. This selection of tough, intelligent psych pop—too serious to compare to The Who Sell Out (as has often been done), too controlled to be compared to Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake (ditto)—reverted to its intended title in 1997 and Reaction gave it wider release in 2002. Rolled Gold is now getting another go via Spain’s Guerssen with its first vinyl release since ’97. 

Once again, there’s a new cover with a mood-appropriate photo of the band in deep thought and neat gilt lettering, and once again, the music is fresh, powerful, beautiful, and forever provoking frustration that it wasn’t released in 1967. Though one wonders what other feats of magic George Martin might have performed with the other tracks, and the demo-nature of the recordings has always left the sound a touch on the harsh side, there are actually quite a few production strokes beyond the usual austerity of demo-making, such as the flute on “Climbing up the Wall” and the magnificent “Love Is All” and the horse hooves effects at the beginning of “Little Boy”. Bass is very fat on Guerssen’s vinyl, providing a decent counterpoint to the harsher high-end elements. An extensive article originally published in Shindig! last year is included in a large, illustrated insert as a nice supplement with this new LP, and as far as the legendary unfinished albums are concerned, Rolled Gold is still second only to The Beach Boys’ legendary SMiLE in my book. 

Review: 'FAB GEAR: The British Beat Explosion and Its Aftershocks: 1963-1967'

It’s no obscure morsel of trivia that British pop was the palest, flimsiest imitation of its American equivalent before The Beatles. When the Fabs turned the ignition switch on the sixties, a flood of new moppy popsters got signed. The best of them—The Kinks, the Stones, The Hollies, you know the rest— would have long and rich careers, but most weren’t fit to pass out cups of water in that league. The worst were throwbacks like Peter Jay and the Jaywalkers, Ray Singer, Bobby Rio and the Revelles, Migil 5, The Wackers, and The Chapters, who make Billy J. Kramer sound like Mick Jagger. Some of the ones that actually knew Chuck Berry existed were at least capable of making a nice noise: Carter-Lewis & The Southerners, Le Group 5, The Bo Street Runners, The Wild Oats, The Epics, The Clique, Grant Tracy, etc. (ironically, however, The Rockin’ Berries apparently never actually listened to the rocker they named themselves after). Artists who might have competed with the major names had the breaks been easier are pretty rare, The Action being one such group.

An expansion of Pye’s Beat, Beat, Beat compilation series, Cherry Red’s FAB GEAR: The British Beat Explosion and Its Aftershocks: 1963-1967 is a hefty six-disc set that collects some of the bad, some of the great, and a whole lot of the in-between. This makes for an inconsistent and rarely revelatory listen, but fans of this tuneful era will find the mass of it great fun, and on occasion, educational. There are pre-stardom tracks from David Bowie (though, at this point, even this stuff is getting pretty familiar), Arthur Brown, The Moody Blues, Klaus Voorman, members of Deep Purple, The Move’s Carl Wayne, Mike D’Abo, Steve Howe, and Lemmy. A small smattering of familiar songs by The Kinks (a silhouette of whom adorns the cover), Chad and Jeremy, The Searchers, and Marmalade are like buoys that keep the listener oriented in a sea of obscurities, as do covers of several beloved Beatles, Kinks, and Chuck Berry songs, though titles such as “Hurdy Gurdy Man”, “I Go to Sleep”, “Where Have All the Good Times Gone”, and “Think It Over” are not covers of the classics you think they are.

Review: 'The A to Z of Mod'

Mod culture was defined by rigorous rules of style and musical tastes. Razor sharp mohair suits were donned for shimmying all night to the very latest Northern soul records while pilled to the clouds on bennies and dexys. Mod enthusiasts Paolo Hewitt and Mark Baxter realize Mod is a lot more elastic than that. In The A to Z of Mod, the writers both pay reverence to the strictures of the pioneer modernists and acknowledge how much the culture has changed throughout the ensuing decades. Archetypal Modernalia (A is for The Action! R is for “Ready, Steady, Go!” S is for The Scooter!) is filed amongst less typical entries (F is for Martin Freeman! G is for Glam and Pub Rock! Y is for The Young Disciples!). The A to Z of Mod redefines Modernism while remaining true to its essence by way of slick design. Published by Prestel, it’s a handy volume busting with fab full color photos and smashing pop art flourishes. Plus it’s compact enough to fit right in the pocket of your Parka.