Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500: #25 - 1

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 happening in the end, my only friend, the end, from 25 to 1...

25. The Left Banke- "Desiree" (1967), in which the normally mellow Left Banke pound out a spiraling prog riff worthy of King Crimson.

Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500: #75 - 51

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 picturing itself in a boat on a river from 75 to 51...

75. The Pretty Things- "S.F. Sorrow Is Born" (1968), in which S.F. Sorrow is born.

Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500: #125 - 101

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 following the White Rabbit from 125 to 101...

124. The Turtles- "You Showed Me" (1968), in which The Turtles take an old folk-rock tune The Byrds couldn't be bothered to release and turn it into something sinister and majestic.

Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500: #475 - 451

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 freaking out from 475 to 451...

475. The Association- "Pandora's Golden Heebie Jeebies" (1966), in which you refuse to listen to today's song because The Association is the band that did the wretchedly sappy "Cherish" and because it's called "Pandora's Golden Heebie Jeebies", and I shout, "You're the one who's missing out!" just as you turn the corner and disappear from view forever.

Review: 'Peppermint Trolley Co.' Vinyl Reissue

Redlands, California's Peppermint Trolley Company had one wild resume. After getting their start as Mark V in 1966, brothers Danny and Jimmy Faragher formed a light baroque-pop act very similar to Too-era Left Banke. The group made appearances on The Beverly Hillbillies and Mannix, backed Sammy Hagar on his 1967 duo-debut with Samson and Hagar, and cut the original version of the Brady Bunch theme song! (Their voices were later replaced with the kids'.)

The recordings they made as The Peppermint Trolley Company are no less interesting. Along with that late-Left Banke sound that dominates their self-titled 1968 LP, there are flashes of hard psych in "Beautiful Sun", which melds the Who of "I Can See for Miles" with the Who of "Bucket T." and vocal scatting straight off a Manhattan Transfer record. "I Remember Long Ago" sounds like S.F. Sorrow-era Pretty Things stripped of their menace. Among the love songs and tunes about how nice bells sound, there are gently delivered but firm-minded criticisms of war, religion, racism, capitalism, and simple-minded patriotism. Their detractors may dismiss them as bubblegum, but The Peppermint Trolley Company were hardly mindless. "Fatal Fallacy" takes the light experimentation of the rest of the album too far with its meandering structure, dissonance, and lack of a strong melody, but the rest is so breezy, pretty, and imaginative that I think you can forgive the guys one over-reaching folly. And since it's appears at the end of Peppermint Trolley Co., it's super easy to skip.

As reissued on vinyl by Out-Sider Music with Guerssen, Peppermint Trolley Co. mostly sounds superb despite a somewhat off-center spindle hole that doesn't affect the sound. Oddly, only the single "Baby, You Come Rolling Cross My Mind" sounds like it was taken from an inferior source. The rest of the record sounds like the PTC cut it last week. As usual for Guerssen, the package includes a spiffy color insert with extensive liner notes.

Farewell, Steve Martin-Caro of The Left Banke

They only made two albums, but The Left Banke was one of the best pop groups of the sixties. They married baroque harpsichord and strings with a British Invasion-by-way-of-NYC backbeat to create such starkly beautiful recordings as "Walk Away Renee", "Pretty Ballerina", the majestic "Desiree", and the eerie "Dark Is the Bark". 

A good deal of that beauty came from the mouth of Steve Martin-Caro, who possessed pop's most exquisitely sad voice as far as I'm concerned. He could even render upbeat confections like "Nice to See You" and "Sing, Little Bird, Sing" heartbreaking. On occasion, he could even shake the tears off his pipes to actually whoop it up on rockers such as "Evening Gown", on which he unleashes one of pop's most unexpected Little-Richard shrieks. Martin-Caro also co-write quite a few of The Left Banke's very best songs, including "She May Call You Up Tonight", "I've Got Something on My Mind", "Shadows Breaking Over My Head", and "Dark Is the Bark". 

Martin-Caro was born Carmelo Esteban Martin Caro, but changed his name to Steve Martin during his pop days, only to add his family surname to his professional name after another entertainer named Steve Martin became famous in the eighties. Sadly, Steve Martin-Caro died at the age of 71 this past Tuesday, January 14. The cause is not yet known.

Psychobabble’s 90 Favorite Songs of the Sixties!

Well, Psychobabblers, today is a banner day for Psychobabble as I cross the threshold of 900 fun-filled posts (amazing to think that the quadruple digits are not that far away!). To mark this milestone, I’m knocking a zero off that 900 to present my personal 90 favorite songs of my favorite musical decade, the sixties. Read carefully now, kiddies: these choices are personal and this is not in anyway intended as some sort of definitive “these are the best songs of the sixties” list. No one person can select such a list. The personal nature will really become apparent in the top twenty, which is seriously dominated by my all-time favorite band, a 17-headed beast I like to call The Beatlestoneskinkswho.

So here it is from my keyboard to your eyes and ears… my 900^th post... 

90. “All Our Yesterdays” by Small Faces

And now, for your delight, we begin with a good-time song with an exhilarating introductory shout, a wild knees up from the darlings of Whapping Warf launderette that comes in just under two minutes. Think of “All Our Yesterdays” as an hors d'oeuvre for all the psych/garage/soul mania to follow.

89. “Reflections” by The Supremes

Here’s a hit that bridges the soul and psych gap with pulsing genius. Motown gets with the times for a lysergic peak through the window of lost time. Diana Ross breaks her cool with a touch of desperation on the ever-escalating bridge and James Jamerson pumps out one of the all-time bass lines of all-time.

88. “Alone Again, Or” by Love