Psychedelia / Prog / Kraut / Space / Psychedelic Folk (60s-70s)

http://psychedelic-rocknroll.blogspot.gr/2009/03/sapphire-thinkers-from-within-sunset.html wrote:"The Sapphire Thinkers" was an American Psychedelic band who recording only one album,"From Within", (Hobbit Records 503) in 1968.
"From Within" contains pleasant vocal arrangements/harmonies and nice touches of Acid and Fuzz guitar and is recommended.
If it's light and breezy West-Coast Psychedelic inflected Pop you're looking for, then this band make all the right moves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6PGxV9ls-g wrote:American Blues were a 1960s Texas-based garage band who played a psychedelic style of blues rock music influenced by the 13th Floor Elevators. They are most famous for including two future members of the band ZZ Top in their ranks, Dusty Hill and Frank Beard. From 1966 to 1968, they played the Dallas-Fort Worth-Houston circuit and headlined in three clubs all called "The Cellar", in Dallas at clubs such as "The Walrus" on Mockingbird Lane, and in Houston at "Love Street Light Circus Feel Good Machine" on Allen's Landing, as late as 1968.

Around 1968 the band (the two Hill brothers and Beard) decided to leave the Dallas--Fort Worth area, relocating to Houston. At this time, however, guitarist Rocky Hill wanted to focus on "straight blues", while his brother Dusty wanted the band to rock more. Rocky left the band, and was soon replaced by Billy Gibbons, of Houston psychedelic-rockers Moving Sidewalks, becoming the band ZZ Top.

Rocky Hill continued to tour around Texas, and elsewhere, becoming one of a number of guitarists well-known within the state for their blues guitar prowess, such as Rocky Athis and Charlie Sexton. In this role, his playing in Austin was said[by whom?] to have been an influence on guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan's formative years, as well. He sometimes referred to himself as "The Anti-Clapton", and one writer with the Houston Press called Rocky "perhaps the wildest and scariest -- both onstage and off -- of all the Texas white-boy blues guitarists."[1]

Rocky Hill - guitar
Dusty Hill - bass
Richard Harris - drums
Doug Davis - piano on "Mellow"
Frank Beard - drums

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraan wrote:Kraan is a German band based in Ulm and formed in 1970. It had several minor hits through the 1970s and 1980s. After a break of ten years, the group reunited in 2000. Their early style can be described as Krautrock that turned later to fusion, combining elements of both rock and jazz.

http://www.allmusic.com/artist/siloah-mn0001174550/biography wrote:

Siloah were an obscure underground Krautrock group from Munich with connections with the better-known Amon Duul. Like the original Amon Duul, Siloah arose out of the commune culture of the 1960s to craft psychedelic rock that was seriously acid-damaged and freaked out and far more creative than the clichés of the typical rock from the hippy era. Thom Argauer played in a Dixieland band with Chris Karrer in the late 1960s before Karrer went on to become one of the founders of Amon Duul II, while Argauer moved to Munich and started a new group with Manuela von Perfall, Heinrich ?Tiny? Stricker, and Wolfgang Gorner. By 1970 they chose the name Siloah, because they liked the sound of it, not realizing that it was a biblical term, as they were way too cool to have anything to do with Christianity. With the core group, Siloah was open to anyone else who wanted to play, mostly others hanging out at the Baumstassen commune where many of the group lived for a while before they eventually moved to an abandoned farmhouse on the outskirts of the city. Their sound was mostly acoustical rock, inspired by the West Coast psychedelic scene, though more improvised and slightly amateurish with the inclusion of the many untrained musicians. That same year in a small Bavarian town in the Allgauer Alps, they recorded an LP with guest musicians ?Buddy? Bernd Beier, Klaus Bartl, Ali Schollenbruch, and a flautist named Mao. The sessions had a very loose and improvised atmosphere, and the untitled record was self-released, with about 600 copies pressed. The album was re-issued in small numbers under the title Saureadler the next year by the small German blues & Underground label. The group also traveled around to various festivals and other gigs, usually all crowded together in a rickety VW van. By mid-1971 many of the group moved away from the farmhouse and Argauer, who had now switched from acoustic guitar to organ, wanted to start another band. He recruited new members Markus Krug and Florian Laber and the trio retained the name Siloah. In the spring of 1972 they recorded a second album with Swiss percussionist Blacky Zumstein. The record?s title, Sukram Gurk, was chosen because Krug?s name looked the best spelled backwards, and later that year this record was also released by the German Blues & Underground label. Though driven by organ and electric guitar rather than acoustic guitars, the album has the same loose improvised feel and unprofessional charm as the first record. Siloah lasted for another year before breaking up in the second half of 1973 as the musicians went on to other projects.

http://www.vintageprog.com/bbb2.htm wrote:Lennie Wright from Web and Samurai produced Brainchild's first and only album, so it's no surprise that "Healing of the Lunatic Owl" is in a similar style to both "I Spider" and Samurai's self-titled album. That means early 70's progressive rock dominated by horns and organ. The opener "Autobiography" starts as a straightforward rocker, but turns in the middle into a complex instrumental section that lasts for the rest of the song. Although it's one of the shortest tracks on the album, it sums up nearly every side of the band's music very well. The swinging title-track is one of the highlights, and the structure is really not that far away from "Autobiography", but the track returns to the main part at the end again. The slow and bluesy beat of "Hide From the Dawn" is a bit more basic, but the long instrumental passages and complex arrangements make it well worth listening to. "She's Learning" is the catchiest song on the album, and has almost hit-potential. However, the longest tune is "A Time A Place", featuring dramatic vocal parts mixed with more intricate instrumental parts. "Two Bad Days" is for me the least good song, but the ballad "Sadness of a Moment" is really beautiful, consisting of nothing else than flute, guitar and vocals. And the album finally closes with the excellent instrumental "To "B"". I'm not sure if I would rate this album as high as "I Spider" or "Samurai", but it's still a very good LP worth finding if you enjoy the two mentioned bands or progressive rock with horns in general.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Savage_Rose wrote:The Savage Rose is a Danish psychedelic rock group, founded in 1967 by Thomas Koppel, Anders Koppel, Alex Riel, Jens Rugsted, Flemming Ostermann, and singer Annisette Koppel. Ilse Marie Koppel was also participating. Nils Tuxen replaced Flemming Ostermann from their second album.

Since the mid-1970s, the group was an acoustic trio consisting of Thomas Koppel, Annisette Koppel (then Hansen) and John Ravn as a core. From the beginning of the 1990s, the group returned to electric instrumentation. Thomas Koppel died on February 25, 2006.

After the release of Love and Freedom in 2012, Savage Rose have been on tour, but in Christmas 2013 they were back in the studio recording new songs and re-recording old songs. This time they will be releasing two studio albums, just as they did in 1968 and 1972. The first album titled Roots of the Wasteland is set to be released in April 2014 and the second as of yet untitled will follow later this year. After 47 years and 21 studio albums, they are still going strong. The first single "Mr. World" was released April 12, 2014 and the new album is set for release May 19.

http://www.allmusic.com/artist/mu-mn0000932183/biography wrote:

This intriguing early-'70s Southern Californian group featured the talents of singer/songwriter Merrell Fankhauser (who was also at the helm of cult classics in the '60s by Fapardokly and HMS Bounty) and Jeff Cotton, previously slide guitarist with Captain Beefheart. Their sole album (from 1971) is a gem of the late hippie era, combining the fractured blues-based tangents of Beefheart with the loose flow and stoned lyricism of bands like the late-'60s Grateful Dead. After a couple more singles, Mu moved to Maui and cut a fair amount of unreleased material before breaking up around 1974. Their eponymous album, as well as a lot of their unreleased material, was reissued in the '80s.

http://www.last.fm/music/Blue+Mountain+Eagle wrote:Blue Mountain Eagle was a short-lived American rock group that evolved out of New Buffalo Springfield in August 1969 and recorded a lone album for Atco Records, which they were personally signed to by label founder Ahmet Ertegun.

Rhythm guitarist/vocalist Dave Price (born on September 23, 1944 in Ballinger, Texas) and drummer/vocalist Don Poncher (born on July 29, 1947 in Chicago, Illinois) were original members of The New Buffalo Springfield, formed in September 1968 by Dewey Martin, the drummer in the original Buffalo Springfield. The new version of the legendary group played extensively between November 1968 and February 1969 before imploding when Stephen Stills and Neil Young took legal action to prevent Martin from using the band’s name.

In spring 1969, Martin and Price formed a second version of New Buffalo Springfield with bass player/vocalist Randy Fuller (born on January 29, 1944 in Hobbs, New Mexico) (formerly of Bobby Fuller Four) and lead guitarist/vocalist Bob BJ Jones (born on November 9, 1942 in Woodbury, New Jersey), who’d worked with Little Richard briefly. The new line up, now going by the name Blue Buffalo, recorded some tracks for Atlantic which were never completed and in June added second lead guitarist Joey Newman from L.A band, Touch. After a tour of the North West (billed as New Buffalo Springfield) in July 1969, the musicians sacked Dewey Martin and returned to Los Angeles where they added Don Poncher from the earlier line up.

http://www.last.fm/music/Mortimer wrote:Despite the reputation surrounding their highly sought-after 1968 LP, New York quartet Mortimer are probably best remembered for their association with The Beatles’ Apple empire. Indeed they recorded a whole album with Peter Asher in 1969 which remains unreleased to this day, largely due to the arrival of Allen Klein at Apple and his culling of several projects.

It wasn’t the first time that Klein had axed the release of an album by the band. In 1966 the pre-Mortimer garage rock band The Teddy Boys were signed to the Cameo Parkway label where they issued two fine and furious singles and cut an album’s worth of material. Klein entered the picture at Cameo in 1967 and nixed the release of the album. Regardless of these misfortunes, The Teddy Boys were hot property in the New York clubs and were soon signed up by B,B & D Productions, a company co-run by Englishman Daniel Secunda, brother of notorious UK pop manager Tony Secunda. They installed the band at their trendy manhattan night club, Arthur, and gave them a flat where they wrote new material in a more acoustic and melodic vein.

An album was duly recorded for Mercury using this acoustic approach and a couple of promo singles lifted. The irresistable opener ‘Dedicated Music Man’ received heavy airplay in the New York area and the album reportedly sold 35,000 copies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweetwater_%28band%29 wrote:Sweetwater was a rock band originally from Los Angeles. They were the act scheduled to open the Woodstock Festival in 1969, although due to being stopped by the police on their way to the festival, solo folksinger Richie Havens became the first performer. Sweetwater performed next, becoming the first band to play the festival.

Sweetwater were early developers of the psychedelic rock/fusion style that was popularized by Jefferson Airplane to be regarded as the archetype "60s Sound". In 1968-69, the band often toured with The Doors. They were also one of the opening acts for Eric Burdon and the Animals in 1968. One of their best-known recordings is a version of the traditional folk song "Motherless Child".

The original members of the band were Nancy "Nansi" Nevins (lead vocals/guitar), August Burns (cello), Albert Moore (flute/backing vocals), Alan Malarowitz (drums), Elpidio Cobian (conga drums), Alex Del Zoppo (keyboards) and Fred Herrera (bass).

On December 8, 1969, three days after Sweetwater performed on The Red Skelton Show, singer Nansi Nevins was severely injured in a car accident, which stopped the progress of the band. Nansi experienced brain damage for some years following the collision, and one of her vocal cords was permanently damaged.[1]

The group reunited for Woodstock '94 in 1994 with three original members - Nevins, Herrera and Del Zoppo. August Burns died in the 1980s, Alan Malarowitz was killed in a car crash in 1981, Albert Moore died of pneumonia in 1994. Elpidio Cobian works as a film statist. In 1999, the band's story was depicted in a VH1 TV-movie called Sweetwater: A True Rock Story. Amy Jo Johnson portrayed Nansi Nevins, while Michelle Phillips portrayed an older Nancy.

http://psychedelicized.com/playlist/a/alexander-rabbit/ wrote:From: New Jersey, USA

Alexander Rabbit were a band who were unfortunately neglected in the music business. Forming in 1962 as the Galaxies IV, the original lineup consisted of Lee Demski (bass), J. Alan Fowler (drums/percussion), Charles Brody (organ), and Chris Holmes (guitar). The Galaxies IV won the World Rock N’ Roll Championship in the mid-1960s, beating out hundreds of bands. By winning the championship, the Galaxies IV were able to play on the same bill with acts like Vanilla Fudge, the Union Gap, the Righteous Brothers, the Isley Brothers, Tommy James and the Shondells, Paul Revere and the Raiders, and Jay and the Americans. The Galaxies IV first hit was “Don’t Lose Your Mind.”

Alexander Rabbit

In 1967, Steve Shierer (vocals) joined the band, which resulted in a change in the name of the group. Alexander Rabbit was born. Alexander Rabbit are most remembered for their live performance of the Spanish piece Malaguainia. The band released an album in 1970 entitled The Hunchback of Notre Dame (The Bells Were My Friends). The content is very melodic psych, similar to the sound of Gandalf. The album was recorded at Associated Recording Studios in New York, and was co-produced by Irving Spice and Max Ellen. The songs on the album show an honest effort and in general the sound is quite respectable.

http://www.psychemusic.org/JESUSrock.html#anchor_177 wrote:No trace of information could be found on this NY based Christian band. I only found out they had two private albums, “Dawning of the Day” (1971?) and this one, “Praise and Prayer” (1972?). The album has been reissued on LP on a limited pressing of 250 with a roughly done silkscreen cover. Band members were Dwight Craver, Cyrna Craver, John Oostdyk, Donna Oostdyk, Sharon Spear, Steve Mc Tamney, Glenn Eberhardt and Lowell Weeks. According to the cover they “were born of the spirit to minister through music our generation"...

Some of the greatness of this album is that it flows fluently in between more heavy fuzz driven garage and delicate inspired folkpsych hymns. All is of course inspired by Jesus-is-our-saviour experiences, all with a very convincing honesty in expressions and inspirations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_River_%28band%29 wrote:Mad River was an American psychedelic rock band.

Mad River [1] formed at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio in April 1966. The band took its name from the nearby Mad River. By March 1967 they had relocated to Berkeley, California. There they came to the attention of cult author Richard Brautigan who launched the band into the growing hippie culture. They released an EP on the independent Wee label before signing a contract with Capitol Records in February 1968.[2] The group's lead songwriter was Lawrence Hammond, but all of the members sang vocals. They released two albums before disbanding in July 1969.

http://psychedelic-rocknroll.blogspot.gr/2010/02/stone-harbour-emerges-1974-psychedelic.html wrote:Based in Youngstown, Ohio, multi-instrumentalist "Ric Ballas" (guitar, keyboards, percussion, vocals) and "Dave McCarty" (vocals, drums, percussion) comprised the "Stone Harbour" line-up.

Released on their own "Stone Harbor" label, the album was apparently a vanity project with "Ric Ballas" and "Dave McCarty" producing, engineering, arranging, writing all ten tracks and handling all of the vocals and instrumentation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trace_%28band%29 wrote:Trace was a Dutch progressive rock trio founded by Rick van der Linden in 1974 after leaving Ekseption. They released three albums before merging back into Ekseption.
In 1973, after releasing their album entitled Trinity, the members of the band Ekseption asked Rick van der Linden to leave the band. At this time Ekseption were quite famous which led Philips, their record-company, to give van der Linden the opportunity to find a new band.

In January 1974 van der Linden started rehearsals with Peter de Leeuwe, who had been playing drums with Ekseption before. The pair split up again soon after, since van der Linden considered de Leeuwe to lack in skill. De Leeuwe was replaced in February by Pierre van der Linden (a second-cousin of Rick), who had left Focus in October, 1973. To complete the trio, Rick finally asked Jaap van Eik, a self-taught musician considered to be one of the best Dutch bass players, to join the band. Originally named Ace (in the tradition of Cream and Flash to highlight their supergroup status), they had to change the name to Trace when they discovered a British band had already trademarked the name.

On 9 September 1974 the trio released their first, self-titled album. Their second album, Birds was released on 1 January 1975, and featured future Marillion drummer Ian Mosley. A third album, The White Ladies, was released in 1976 with Rick van der Linden being supported by all of the former members of Ekseption save trumpeter Rein van den Broek. In 1978 van den Broek rejoined the group which effectively became Ekseption once again.

http://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-jelly-bean-bandits-mn0000769334/biography wrote:Newburgh, New York psych-punks the Jelly Bean Bandits formed in 1966. Singer Billy Donald, guitarist Jack Dougherty, bassist Fred Buck, keyboardist Michael "Mr. Addams" Raab, and drummer Joe "Laredo London" Scalfari originally operated as "the Mirror", regularly packing area nightspots like the local Trade Winds, Poughkeepsie's Buccaneer Nightclub, and Burlington, Vermont's Red Dog. In due time, they recorded a three-song demo reel that resulted in a three-album recording contract with Mainstream Records -- however, unknown to Mainstream, these three songs represented the sum total of the Jelly Bean Bandits' repertoire, forcing the band to write enough additional material to flesh out a full-length LP in the course of a week. Amazingly, their eponymous 1967 debut is excellent, a freakbeat cult classic distinguished by Dougherty's emotive guitar and some innovative production techniques -- all the more impressive, the album was recorded in a single 12-hour stretch. Mainstream hated the end result, however, and dropped the Jelly Bean Bandits just as they were commencing work on the follow-up -- only one song, "Salesman," was completed before the sessions were aborted. The group dissolved soon after, only to reunite in 1998 to finally commit to tape the songs that were written for their never-completed sophomore LP -- only Donald declined to participate in the project, released in 2001 under the title Time and Again. A vintage live date captured at the Buccaneer on September 3, 1967 was issued on CD the following year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Brother_and_the_Holding_Company wrote:Big Brother and the Holding Company is an American rock band that formed in San Francisco in 1965 as part of the same psychedelic music scene that produced the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Jefferson Airplane. They are best known as the band that featured Janis Joplin as their lead singer. Their 1968 album Cheap Thrills is considered one of the masterpieces of the psychedelic sound of San Francisco; it reached number one on the Billboard charts, and was ranked number 338 in Rolling Stone '​s the 500 greatest albums of all time.

http://www.allmusic.com/artist/after-all-mn0001817020/biography wrote:Hastily put together in 1969 by a veteran quartet of Tallahassee, FL, musicians and together for only a handful of months, After All is merely a footnote in the history of late-'60s and Florida rock. Their single recorded effort, however, was a moody slice of acid-tinged progressive pop that, while perhaps not among the finest obscurities from the era, brings back the grooviness and off-the-cuff adventurousness of the decade in full color

http://rockasteria.blogspot.gr/2011/02/phantasia-phantasia-1972-us-fantastic.html wrote:Reissue of US psychedelic ultra rarity recorded 1971/72. The original albums (a complete one and a one-sided) are legends for all psychedelic/garage collectors, only 25 copies pressed of each -- not many people have the pleasure of having seen a copy.

The music is creeping slowly and sensitively in your mind, whether stoned or not φ it takes you wherever you want. Those are the complete sessions, 55mins in mastertape quality presented the first time to the public -- extremely informative booklet (20 sided), with outstanding artwork and colour photos.

One of the best Psychedelic albums, playing in the same league as Fraction, Music Emporium, Hunger, Mystic Siva, Damon. Later the band changed into Trizo 50! !