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SteveG View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 02 2015 at 10:46
Bigelf
Bigelf Into The Maelstrom album cover
 
Into the Maelstrom
 
I have to give a shout out to these heavy proggers as ITM sounds like a space rock journey as the band kidnap Mike Portnoy and go time traveling. Bigelf truly are the dark Beatles from an alternate universe!


Edited by SteveG - January 02 2015 at 11:04
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 02 2015 at 13:38
Originally posted by SteveG SteveG wrote:

^Yes TM, Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators was only regionally popular, mainly to South California and Texas of course, and was reported to have sold no more than 40,000 copies on release in 1966 and did not even make the Billboard record charts.
 
The claims that the band influenced everything from early punk, modern alternate rock to Robert Plant's vocals always seemed way overstated to me. I just get satisfaction of knowing that the Elevators did a lot of things first regardless of who or what they were said to have influenced.


I do get the impression that 13FE and Roky Erickson in general are much more popular in America than in Europe. The only other Erickson fans I've met are some people in the local punk scene here in Copenhagen who have fairly obscure taste in music.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 02 2015 at 14:31
Yes, that's true. The Elevators were not even popular on America's east coast in the sixties let alone Europe.
 
Americans who actually stated that they were into Roky included American Pre Punks and Punks Tom Verlaine, Patty Smith and Henry Rollins in the 70's. Rollins even paid for Roky's dentures once. God bless him.
 
Btw, there is an impressive Swedish fansite (Roky Erickson, The Swedish fan page) if you can read Swedish! 


Edited by SteveG - January 02 2015 at 15:34
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 02 2015 at 15:05
The 13th Floor Elevators.
Headstone: The Contact Sessions
Charly Records (U.K.) 2010 Single CD standard issue hard cover mini booklet.
 
When Chary reissue producer Paul Drummond found himself out of luck in recovering any multi track recording masters for The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators, he was surprised to find that the band's first recordings at Walt Andrus small Huston, Texas studio (now called Wire Studio) were not only still in existence but that International Artists, who had picked up the locally successful single You're Gonna Miss Me and widely distributed it in 1966, had a digital copy of the Andrus' mono safety master.
 
These are not the same recordings which were redone at Gold Star  Studios in Huston, Texas for the Psychedelic Sounds album (that also included four new songs). However, the takes of You're Gonna Miss Me c/w Tried to Hide were taken from these sessions and are featured on the Psychedelic Sounds album.
 
Except for four songs (Kingdom Of Heaven, You Don't Know, Don't Fall Down and Reverberation), this material was initially slated for an album release by a company affiliated with Andrus called Contact Records before the tiny company ran out of cash.
 
Included on this special issue from 2010 is a remaster of the Contact sessions, which has  excellent sound quality despite the nature and age of the source recording tapes, as well as outtakes which include a properly mixed master of You're Gonna Miss Me with Roky's lead and Tommy Hall's backing vocals out front in the sound mix (awesome) as well as great covers of Somebody to Love and a cool take on Buddy Holly's regional hit I'm Gonna Love You Too.
 
Drummond even threw in four poor sounding live cuts as they're believed to never have been bootlegged. No wonder!
 
For the record, the Elevators at this point consisted of Roky Erickson, rhythm guitar and vocals, Stacy Sutherland, lead guitar, John Ike Walton, drums, Tommy Hall, jug and backing vocals,  and Benny Thurman on bass. (Thurman was shortly replaced by Ronnie Leatherman for the Huston Psychedelic Sounds sessions.)
Charly's special issue of Headstone: The Contact Sessions coupled with their double disc reissue of The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators  is an immersion experience into the Elevators' first album that Pink Floyd would be envious of. And that's all for now on the Elevators' seminal debut album. 


Edited by SteveG - March 12 2015 at 09:37
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 02 2015 at 21:15
Try H.P. Lovecraft's Dreams in the Witch House: The Complete Philips Recordings (2005)
 
All the great original psych tunes like At the Mountain of Madness, Electrollentando, Mobius Trip, White Ship and Wayfaring Stranger.
 
9 out of 10 acidheads prefer  H.P. Lovecraft over generic, commercial psychedelic music.
 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 03 2015 at 04:21
Originally posted by SteveG SteveG wrote:

Yes, that's true. The Elevators were not even popular on America's east coast in the sixties let alone Europe.
 
Americans who actually stated that they were into Roky included American Pre Punks and Punks Tom Verlaine, Patty Smith and Henry Rollins in the 70's. Rollins even paid for Roky's dentures once. God bless him.
 
Btw, there is an impressive Swedish fansite (Roky Erickson, The Swedish fan page) if you can read Swedish! 


I usually count 13FE as the kind of group that's more influential than popular, they're probably a better example than Velvet Underground. It does seem like 13FE are way more popular with punks, who regard them as garage-rock forerunners, than with psych-rock fans. I find this somewhat odd, as their esoteric philosophical lyrics are like a 180 degree opposite from punk's general lyrical focus on real life concerns.

I'll look out for that fansite by the way. I can read Swedish somewhat well, it's closely related to Danish.


Edited by Toaster Mantis - January 03 2015 at 04:23
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 03 2015 at 10:04
Originally posted by The Dark Elf The Dark Elf wrote:

Try H.P. Lovecraft's Dreams in the Witch House: The Complete Philips Recordings (2005)
 
All the great original psych tunes like At the Mountain of Madness, Electrollentando, Mobius Trip, White Ship and Wayfaring Stranger.
 
9 out of 10 acidheads prefer  H.P. Lovecraft over generic, commercial psychedelic music.
 
Thanks for the tip on Dreams In The Wictchhouse, Greg. My earlier CD's sound like crap so I'll check out this 2005 compilation.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 03 2015 at 10:20
Originally posted by Toaster Mantis Toaster Mantis wrote:

Originally posted by SteveG SteveG wrote:

Yes, that's true. The Elevators were not even popular on America's east coast in the sixties let alone Europe.
 
Americans who actually stated that they were into Roky included American Pre Punks and Punks Tom Verlaine, Patty Smith and Henry Rollins in the 70's. Rollins even paid for Roky's dentures once. God bless him.
 
Btw, there is an impressive Swedish fansite (Roky Erickson, The Swedish fan page) if you can read Swedish! 


I usually count 13FE as the kind of group that's more influential than popular, they're probably a better example than Velvet Underground. It does seem like 13FE are way more popular with punks, who regard them as garage-rock forerunners, than with psych-rock fans. I find this somewhat odd, as their esoteric philosophical lyrics are like a 180 degree opposite from punk's general lyrical focus on real life concerns.

I'll look out for that fansite by the way. I can read Swedish somewhat well, it's closely related to Danish.
Yes, 13EF were definitely more influential with punks because of the garage rock sound, their attitude and a few songs like Monkey Island from the first album that blasted social conventions like having wearing a suit to work for the most inane of jobs like a soda jerk.
 
Others who claimed immediate influence were Janis Joplin who copped Roky's vocal style and Big Brother and the Holding Company who went toward a blues rock sound with Joplin. Another affected was Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top who went blues rock as well as his past band The Moving Sidewalks whose mix of studio effects psychedelic blues seemed to anticipate sounds on Jimi Hendrix's Axis: Bold as Love album which came out months later.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 03 2015 at 14:04

Just finally got around to picking up this great live Hendrix jam on CD. The liner notes inform me that the originally included versions of "Little Wing" and "Slight Return" were credited to a killer 24th of May 1969 set at the San Diego Sports Arena, but were really from an equally awesome show at the Royal Albert Hall 24th of February, earlier that same year. You see, the RAH shows were to be used for a Hendrix concert film, but that project stalled. At that point, Mike Jeffery handed the masters to Eddie Kramer, who was at work picking out tracks for a Hendrix live album - this, of course - and Kramer included the aforementioned cuts.

Problem was that the rights to those masters actually belonged to the filmmakers at that point, so when they found out that they were sneaked on, they were able to sue Jeffery. As a result, this CD version replaces the RAH "Little Wing" and "Slight Return" cuts with cuts actually from the San Diego performance, of the same tracks.

I'm intrigued by all this, so I'm planning to track down an original US or UK vinyl pressing of In The West to get my hands on those RAH cuts.

This CD version also adds three more San Diego cuts: renditions of "Fire", "I Don't Live Today", and "Spanish Castle Magic". Very much worthwhile,and all good quality, the CD is as worthwhile as the LP.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 03 2015 at 22:42
Originally posted by Lear'sFool Lear'sFool wrote:

Just finally got around to picking up this great live Hendrix jam on CD. The liner notes inform me that the originally included versions of "Little Wing" and "Slight Return" were credited to a killer 24th of May 1969 set at the San Diego Sports Arena, but were really from an equally awesome show at the Royal Albert Hall 24th of February, earlier that same year. You see, the RAH shows were to be used for a Hendrix concert film, but that project stalled. At that point, Mike Jeffery handed the masters to Eddie Kramer, who was at work picking out tracks for a Hendrix live album - this, of course - and Kramer included the aforementioned cuts.

Problem was that the rights to those masters actually belonged to the filmmakers at that point, so when they found out that they were sneaked on, they were able to sue Jeffery. As a result, this CD version replaces the RAH "Little Wing" and "Slight Return" cuts with cuts actually from the San Diego performance, of the same tracks.

I'm intrigued by all this, so I'm planning to track down an original US or UK vinyl pressing of In The West to get my hands on those RAH cuts.

This CD version also adds three more San Diego cuts: renditions of "Fire", "I Don't Live Today", and "Spanish Castle Magic". Very much worthwhile,and all good quality, the CD is as worthwhile as the LP.
 
I treasure my vinyl In the West album I picked up in the 70s. It has THE BEST version of Red House anywhere.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 04 2015 at 13:12
13th Floor Elevators
Easter Everywhere 1967
Chary Records (U.K.) double CD standard issue hard cover booklet.
 
1967's Elevators release Easter Everywhere was a big departure from the sound of their proceeding album, The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators, due to several factors. The first being that the band wanted more time to record their follow up. Second, they had a clear message to communicate and, thirdly, Bob Dylan's influence hung in the mid sixties air like a fog.
 
Band lyricist and jug player Tommy Hall wanted to express his collective beliefs in reincarnation and the effects of Karma and the virtues of meditation along with songs about personal and universal love.
 
The first thing he did while collaborating songwriting with Roky Erickson was to stress that Erickson's howling vocals would obscure their lyrics and the messages  that they imparted.
 
The band's regard for Dylan was not uncommon in that era and they decided to cover the beautiful Dylan standard (It's all over now) Baby Blue on the record. This also sparked Hall into being a better lyricist. Not quite on the level of a Dylan, however, a few songs like Dust did come close and nascent Leonard Cohen lyrical imagery pops up on the song I Need To Tell You.
 
The album's first track and centerpiece Slip Inside This House was Hall's paean to reincarnation that he believed all religions expressed even if they got the message wrong as he supposed was the case in Christianity. It's over long verbiage and lack any outstanding sonic bridges is the most outstanding feature of the song and actually pre dates modern Alt Rock's practice of the same by some forty years.
 
All of the songs on Easter Everywhere are sung clearly by Erickson with no manic howls and this has a negative effect on songs that should have been screaming rockers like Slide Machine, Earthquake and Levitation which sounds like it could have easily fit on the band's debut album if it was rocked out.
 
The album overall has a quieter tone that's more akin to Folk Rock but eschews all of the period instruments and recording  studio effects, save for Tommy's electric jug.As promised, the album was better recorded than their first album but was again awkwardly mixed and poorly mastered to vinyl.
 
Charly has again addressed the mastering problem but the awkward and rough at time sound mix still remains from the stereo safety master. Again, a source tape is not available for a mono remaster so Paul Drummond and his expert restoration team again transferred the mono version of the album from vinyl for the reissue's first CD. The sound mix of the mono version is almost identical to that of the stereo mix except that the mono mix sports a heavy muscular bass mix which really propels Slip Inside This House along like a steamroller and adds depth to the slow R&B strut of closing track Leave Your Body Behind.
 
Charly also threw in a great blues rock outtake called Inside My Bones that showcases lead guitarist's Stacy Sutherlands chops. Due to his switch from reverb to moderate distortion for this album, he sounds like a
slowed down version of Stevie Ray Vaughan on this track.
 
Incidentally, this album would be the last Elevators album to prominently feature both Roky Erickson and Tommy Hall as Erickson would succumb to the damaging effects of heavy acid intake by the middle of 1967 and Hall would pursue other areas to spread 'his message' after Easter Everywhere failed to chart. 
 
As with the previous Charly reissues, indepth liner notes and mono and stereo versions of the original album, remastered in great sound, again make for a fantastic immersion experience into the Elevators' second released and modernly acclaimed album. Recall that this album was released in the time of Sgt. Pepper's and Are You Experienced,  Disraeli Gearsalong with the Elevators own 1966 debut album Psychedelic Sounds, and you will quickly notice that it does not sound dated. Far out. 
 
 
 
 


Edited by SteveG - March 12 2015 at 09:39
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 04 2015 at 13:30
Originally posted by Lear'sFool Lear'sFool wrote:


Just finally got around to picking up this great live Hendrix jam on CD. The liner notes inform me that the originally included versions of "Little Wing" and "Slight Return" were credited to a killer 24th of May 1969 set at the San Diego Sports Arena, but were really from an equally awesome show at the Royal Albert Hall 24th of February, earlier that same year. You see, the RAH shows were to be used for a Hendrix concert film, but that project stalled. At that point, Mike Jeffery handed the masters to Eddie Kramer, who was at work picking out tracks for a Hendrix live album - this, of course - and Kramer included the aforementioned cuts.

Problem was that the rights to those masters actually belonged to the filmmakers at that point, so when they found out that they were sneaked on, they were able to sue Jeffery. As a result, this CD version replaces the RAH "Little Wing" and "Slight Return" cuts with cuts actually from the San Diego performance, of the same tracks.

I'm intrigued by all this, so I'm planning to track down an original US or UK vinyl pressing of In The West to get my hands on those RAH cuts.

This CD version also adds three more San Diego cuts: renditions of "Fire", "I Don't Live Today", and "Spanish Castle Magic". Very much worthwhile,and all good quality, the CD is as worthwhile as the LP.
I' m trying to get a handle on this Kev. I have an extensive library of Hendrix bios from everyone like manager Chas Chandler to recording engineer Eddie Kramer. Some say the San Diego cuts were the originals while others so they're not.  Very Interesting! Wink
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 04 2015 at 15:01
^ Hmmm... I guess comparing the LP and CD renditions should reveal minor differences, if not major differences in Jimi's soloing, should the LP have RAH cuts and the CD San Diego cuts. I'll have to get back to you on that when I get the LP version.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 05 2015 at 08:27
^Sorry I couldn't get back sooner. I jam with friends on Sunday night.
 
According to the 1992 bio Hendrix: Setting the Record Straight by John McDermott with Eddie Kramer, famed Hendrix recording engineer Eddie Kramer and his assistant John Jansen, who mixed the Live: In The West album, both claim that Hendrix's co-manager Michael Jeffrey give them unmarked tape boxes for mixing both Voodoo Chile (slight return) and Little Wing that were actually from the Albert Hall concerts recorded in 1969 and were mislabeled on the 1972 Reprise LP as being from the San Diego concert to avoid legal hassles with the Albert Hall concert producers Steve Gold and Michael Goldstein.
 
So, unless these tracks were switched back in recent times, they are from the second night Albert Hall show.
 
As I have the album on original vinyl but no newer reissues, I can't do a comparison to check.
 
If you're able to do an A/B comparison, let me know ASAP.  


Edited by SteveG - January 05 2015 at 08:50
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 05 2015 at 16:24

The Moody Blues: Counter Culture Gurus or Opportunists?

On the heels of their 1967 album's success, the orchestral/rock fusion masterpiece Days of Future Passed, The Moody Blues returned with a counter culture acid anthem about Timothy Leary, and a psychedelic rock album featuring all of the hip instruments of that era such as Sitar and, of course, more mellotron for their follow up album In Search Of The Lost Chord in 1968.

I always felt that this album always had an unauthentic feel to it as if the Moody's consulted marketing hippies to show them the way to instant counter culture acceptance and album sales. How authentic does any of their albums following DOFP sound to you? 

The Moody Blues 923-9509.jpg
The Moody Blues: Real beards or falsies?



Edited by SteveG - January 10 2015 at 12:58
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 05 2015 at 17:27
^ I'd say the only reason they may sound insincere is the fact that they were taking their DOFP style and then just adding ever greater light psych influences to it. Their way of doing things just not gelling with psych so much for some listeners.

DOFP did have such light psych in it already, and now the Moodies were adding more and more, diving in via Leary references for one. Hayward must've been responsible for that, being the egghead of the bunch.

Hayward sure was sincere and took himself seriously, come to think of it, with his crazed poetry that opens Lost Chord and bookends DOFP. Perhaps a bit unintentionally pretentious, but rather wonderful. He had his heart in the right place for sure, and said poetry is the best example of this.

Now, those actual, physical beards... THOSE could be false. Tongue
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 05 2015 at 19:16
^Wise words, my good man. And funny, too!
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 06 2015 at 02:13
All I can say is that I've never warmed up to The Moody Blues the way I did to Procol Harum, Pink Floyd etc.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 06 2015 at 10:44
^Same here. I liked DOFP but that's as far as it went for me. There was much darker or harder edged stuff  around at that time that caught my eye. Wink
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 06 2015 at 11:00
Originally posted by SteveG SteveG wrote:

The Moody Blues: Counter Culture Gurus or Opportunists?

On the heels of their 1967 album's success, the orchestral/rock fusion masterpiece Days of Future Passed, The Moody Blues returned with a counter culture acid anthem, Timothy Leary, and a psychedelic rock album featuring all of the hip instruments of that era such as Sitar and, of course, more mellotron for their follow up album In Search Of The Lost Chord in 1968.

I always felt that this album always had an unauthentic feel to it as if the Moody's consulted marketing hippies to show them the way to instant counter culture acceptance and album sales. How authentic does any of their albums following DOFP sound to you? 

The Moody Blues 923-9509.jpg
The Moody Blues: Real beards or falsies?
 
I believe they were very sincere, considering the bulk of their work up to Seventh Sojourn continued a very spiritual journey. They also expressed political points without being overly crass. As far as In Search of the Lost Chord, it is some of the songs on side two of the album that are truly great, as opposed to the more popular tunes on side one (like Ride My See-saw and Legend of a Mind):
 
 
 
Beautiful. Evocative. Headphones only.
 
 
 
 
 
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