All reviews by independent1

Jagad Guru Chris Butler & Friends - Mantra Electric Jagad Guru Chris Butler & Friends – Mantra Electric

Imagine if you will, Carlos Santana fronting Pink Floyd circa Wish You Were Here, with a dash of Camel and a little Popol Vuh for flavoring.  Add some synth and smooth melodic vocal harmonies chanting devotion to Hare Krishna, and you’ve got the sound of Jagad Guru Chris Butler’s “Mantra Electric” double LP.  Released in [...]

Soonkay Lisa: What I Want Out of Life / Give Me All Your Love Soonkay Lisa: What I Want Out of Life / Give Me All Your Love

This perky little 7″ was one of my choice finds from a guy selling records out of his garage in Cottonwood, Arizona last year.  Interesting artist name, pink Hawaiian label, great titles — sounds promising, put it in the pile, it’s worth a try.  Didn’t take long after setting the needle down to realize that [...]

The Fifth Avenue Buses: Trip To Gotham City The Fifth Avenue Buses: Trip To Gotham City

Here’s a fun artifact from the glory days of the exploitation LP.  It’s another of the uncountable number of Batman-related releases from the mid-60’s, this one on the Movietone Records subsidiary of ABC Records.  With songs written by Billy Page and arranged by Gene Page (father/son team perhaps?), they’ve managed to tap into the offbeat, [...]

The Skoings - Doctors Wives / Do The Orbit The Skoings – Doctors Wives / Do The Orbit

Sole release from this L.A.-based band circa 1977.  I’m guessing UCLA students from the contact address on the back cover, and sounding a bit like a crunchier Devo, without the synths.  Not quite punk rock, though I first remember seeing the sleeve pictured in a 1978 L.A. Times article about local punk singles.  Doctors Wives [...]

Various Artists: Night Club 68 Various Artists: Night Club 68

Released on the Czech Supraphon label, “Night Club 68” features not only a way cool mod pop art LP cover, but a nice sampling of the groovy young sounds from hip Prague nightspots. Pavel Sedlacek opens the proceedings by covering a couple of UK beat pop hits — his version of The Move’s “Flowers In [...]

Warren Kime - Children of Time Warren Kime – Children of Time

Warren Kime may be best known to record collectors for his trio of Brass Impact LPs on the Command label released in the mid-to-late 60’s. An excellent overview of his career and how these LPs came to be can be found here: http://www.spaceagepop.com/kime.htm.
There’s one LP the Space Age Pop overview missed, though, as his “Children [...]

Young Approach: More Love Around Young Approach: More Love Around

“The young approach to music is here.  We choose love as our theme.  We sing, we write, we play and live it.  It’s in our every scheme.  Of all that we have experienced, love is the best we’ve found.  Now we pass it on to you, so there’s more love around.”  If ever there was [...]