Psych / Prog

Far out, MAAHHHN!!!

  • Sweet Marie: 1 Sweet Marie: 1

    One of those bands that just really, really, really, really, really wanted to sound like Hendrix. Not that that’s a bad thing though, as there are more than a few highly enjoyable tracks on here. Take the grinding, fuzzy “Sweet Pea” for example. On the whole it’s somewhat over-exaggerated and hard to take completely seriously [...]

  • Hugh Romney (Wavy Gravy) Hugh Romney (Wavy Gravy)

    Before transforming himself into performance artist, westcoast scenemaker, and hippie commune godfather Wavy Gravy, Hugh Romney hung around the beat scene on both coasts, and made some recordings. This poorly documented album, titled “Third Stream Humour”, dates from 1962 and is a live recording (at least partly) from a standup performance at the Renaissance in [...]

  • Bojan Adamič - MaÅ¡kerada Bojan Adamič - MaÅ¡kerada

    This is the soundtrack to the Slovanian film Maškerada (Boštjan Hladnik). The film was made in 1971, but was banned and only shown years later in 1984, apparently due to the explicit sex scenes that it contains.  
    Anyway, the tripped out psychedelic “song” Hippy on the A-side of the 45 is quite spectacular. It has a great funky garage beat, wild soaring hammond, [...]

  • Tangerine - De l'autre cote de la foret... Tangerine - De l’autre cote de la foret…

    Tangerine’s first album from 1972 is the full package. From the beautiful cover art to the long-haired pose on the back, you know you are getting something great. And they deliver. One of the few albums that I can say stood up to its cover. Well instrumented psychedelic folk with the tiniest hints of their [...]

  • Los Grillos - Mi Destino Es Como El Viento Los Grillos - Mi Destino Es Como El Viento

    The sheer amount of non-(North) American records located in the greater Los Angeles area is mind boggling to say the least. One week I’ll come across a grip of Eastern European prog/folk records, the next week some Calypso 78s…just this past week I found a handful of Aboriginal field recordings and a stack of 20 [...]

  • Selah: Consider These Words Selah: Consider These Words

    Based on the cover I got up fairly high hopes for this one pretty much immediately as I flipped to it. Unfortunately these mid-west Christian hippies only really get it together on a couple tracks here… but those tracks are good if not a bit out of step with the rest of the album. For [...]

  • Ray Harlowe & Gyp Fox: First Rays Ray Harlowe & Gyp Fox: First Rays

    You’ll probably read a fair number of reviews where a record is described as sounding “wasted”, but this one really truly does fit the bill. I’ve actually heard this referred to as a “blues rock” or “guitar rock” record which I don’t really get. I mean, it’s far too sloppy and demented to pin down [...]

  • The Bag - Red Purple & Blue The Bag - Red Purple & Blue

    The Bag were a late sixties blue-eyed soul band from the New York area that made one full length LP for Decca that incorporates enough touches of psych to get mildly sweated by people who collect that stuff. Needless to say the LP sank without a trace upon release. This song is the [...]

  • Universe: S/T Universe: S/T

    One of the better random thrift shop finds of the year for me so far, and one of the best and weirdest Christian lp’s I’ve heard probably ever. Genuinely spaced out and progy in a crude and good way (especially for the late 70’s). Slightly reminiscent of Silver Apples at times, and pretty cosmic all [...]

  • Don Bellezzo -- Concert Hall Univ. of New Mexico 1972 Don Bellezzo — Concert Hall Univ. of New Mexico 1972

    So I suppose I purchased this sometime in some place but have no recollection of having done so. I found this in the files last year. Easy to miss as it’s merely a blank sleeve.
    This is a quietly strange record that was pressed up after Don Bellezzo’s concert at University of mexico in [...]

  • Mill Run Band -- Pilot Meets Stars Mill Run Band — Pilot Meets Stars

    This album reminds me of the time in college when the whole crew and I gathered some 40s, some blunts and headed to Lizard’s Rock to watch the meteor shower. I believe a few of us even brought little hand drums. I was a bit too neurotic to not approach this whole [...]

  • Corvina: S/T Corvina: S/T

    Yet another pretty mediocre Hungarian rock record for your viewing/listening pleasure. I couldn’t help but get excited when I found this cause the cover is so foreign and cool, but it’s mostly sorta jaunty lightweight pop with some flutey sheep-herder moves. There are a couple pretty cool tracks that rock a bit harder though so [...]

  • GRAVELPIT: SnowGlobe ~ Rockadelic RRLP36, 1999 GRAVELPIT: SnowGlobe ~ Rockadelic RRLP36, 1999

    This record certainly affirms the boundless parameters of the Rockadelic Records label and it’s “open to all those worthy” release philosophy. The group GRAVELPIT were a very talented group whose single Rockadelic album release seems to project equally in lyric and song, an ample dealing of post damage recovery vibes. In short, victory despite it’s [...]

  • Simple Image - Spinning Spinning Spinning Simple Image - Spinning Spinning Spinning

    One of those frustrating LPs where the music can never live up to the awesome cover art. The Simple Image were a band from Wellington, New Zealand that formed in the mid 60s. This album is their debut from ‘68 and the title track was a local number one single. There were [...]

  • The Avengers - Electric Recording The Avengers - Electric Recording

    The Avengers were a local New Zealand pop band of the late 60s. This was their first LP & was released in 1967. They came from Wellington & had the good fortune to hook up with US hippie hitch-hiker Chris Malcolm who went on to write over half of the songs on this record, playing [...]

  • Euclid: Heavy Equipment 1970, Amsterdam (Flying Dutchman Subsidiary) Euclid: Heavy Equipment 1970, Amsterdam (Flying Dutchman Subsidiary)

    Euclid’s one and only album is among the very best of it’s type, which is most certainly Heavy Rock at it’s best. The musicians themselves were of an excellent caliber & very experienced, coming from a diverse New England Garage & Psych Rock background. Groups from which they haled prior included the noteworthy Psych tinged [...]

  • Think - Variety Think - Variety

    This album makes for great and somewhat sophisticated psychedelic nutrition for those hungry heavy heads with a predisposed preference for multi-colored musical edification. Don’t get the wrong idea though, this is NOT just some over rated, useless & busy cerebral background filler of an album. Neither is it one of those that has every possible [...]

  • Orang-Utan: (same) 1970, Bell Records Orang-Utan: (same) 1970, Bell Records

    The group Orang-Utan consisted of an amalgamation of talent. The best musicians from several other notable dissolving bands, that had been playing in the North of London in the late 60s, were to be the contributors in combination. The story behind this group is just as interesting as the music they played itself. This group [...]

  • The Tree People s/t The Tree People s/t

    Here’s one of my favorite northwest private folk records. It came out of Eugene Oregon in 1979, all the songs are composed by Stephen Cohen. Stephen has a nice fragile voice that compliments his acoustic guitar nicely. About half the songs have vocals and the other half are instrumental and kinda remind me of Robbie [...]

  • Happiendo - Kazemachiroman (Happy End - Windy Street Romance) Happiendo - Kazemachiroman (Happy End - Windy Street Romance)

    Many consider Happy End the first true rock band from Japan. This is due to the fact that they were the first to make rock albums sung entirely in their native Japanese. They are very well known in Japan, however I’m not sure of their popularity in the Western World so I hope this mini-review [...]

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