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

http://www.waysidemusic.com/Music-Products/Baba-Scholae-69__05-AV-spc-120920.aspx wrote:"The music itself is an excellent psych / folk rock / proto-progressive album. Perhaps not mind-blowing, but given the 1969 date, certainly one to two years ahead of its time. Fans of the genre will most certainly want to own this. It's a professional recording, not some muddy demo. "-Tom Hayes

"In 1969, legendary psychedelic/early progressive rock band Baba Scholae recorded an album at IBC Sound Recording Studios in London -- however, it was never officially released. The band's leader was Jean-Yves Labat de Rossi, better known as M Frog Labat, the synth and keyboard maestro on Todd Rungren's early Utopia albums and coincidentally, the founder of the Ad Vitam label. Only three copies (acetates) of 69 were made, but the album's cult following lasts to this day. Often compared to the work of King Crimson, Pink Floyd, Soft Machine, and Gong, Baba Scholae's 69 is truly a 'lost and found again' masterpiece with music that was years ahead of its time. For a gem like this to have been buried for 43 years is nothing short of extraordinary.

http://rockasteria.blogspot.gr/2012/10/marble-phrogg-marble-phrogg-1968-us.html wrote:
This now rare and sought-after album was the work of a band from Tulsa in Northeastern Oklahoma. Although entirely embellished with cover versions collectors will pay hundreds of bucks for an original copy, the attraction being that many of the covers are as good, maybe even better than the originals.

First off is I'm So Glad with some tasty fuzz guitar; next up is Love Me Again with more superb guitar work; this is evident too on Mars Bonfire's Born To Be Wild - every bit as good as The Steppenwolf version. There's a fine rendition of The Byrds' I Feel A Whole Lot Better, a very psychedelic treatment of Ingle-De Loach's Fields Of Sun with some excellent guitarwork and drumming and a fine Hendrix impersonation on Fire.

Side Two isn't quite as good but it includes a rehash of Mick Jagger's Connection, a very fuzzy cover of Strange Brew and impressive reworks of Donovan's Season Of The Witch and Eric Burdon's Sky Pilot. Certainly any collector of psychedelia should snap up the recent repress. It has an interesting back cover too!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agitation_Free wrote:Agitation Free was a German experimental krautrock band, formed in 1967 by Michael "Fame" Günther (bass guitar), Lutz "Lüül" Ulbrich (guitar), Lutz Ludwig Kramer (guitar) and Christopher Franke (drums). They were initially called Agitation, a name they chose at random from a dictionary. The band had to change the name because another band with the same name already existed. Agitation Free was chosen as the result of a panel before a free show played in the early 1970s saying "Agitation Free" (meaning "free concert")

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neon_Pearl wrote:Neon Pearl was a 1960s British psychedelic band consisting of Peter Dunton (vocals/guitar/keyboards/drums), Bernard Jinks (bass guitar/backing vocals) and Nick Spenser (guitar/harmonium/keyboards). They were formed to play as a resident band in a club in Germany, but returned to England in late 1967.

In 1967, Neon Pearl recorded a number of studio songs but could not find a record contract. In 2001, Acme released them as the album 1967 Recordings , which is a fine example of experimental British psychedelia with its hazy riffs, mild guitar distortions and vocal harmonies. Dunton was also in the marginally less obscure British psychedelic bands the Flies and Please, while Jinks later played in Bulldog Breed and T2, the latter also including Dunton.

Popular songs included "Forever", "Going With The Flow", "Just Another Day", "Out Of Sight" and "What You See".

http://tyme-machine.blogspot.gr/2009/04/dream-get-dreamy-norway-1967.html wrote:Norwegian psych from '67 featuring legendary guitarist Terje Rypdal. The band sing in English and the sound is very UK late '60s with freaked out guitar solos and hammond. A bit like Cream meets Hendrix meets Procol Harum.
~ Internet Source.

Fantastic album from this Norwegian band who apparently split up because they could not agreeon their musical direction. It's a shame as this shows what a cool bunch they were, mixing Soul, Jazz, Blues and the slight influence of english psych into the mix, creating a real twisted album with great guitar and screaming hammond in places.
~ by Oak Acetator.

Other than oftentimes laughable lyrics (typical of the time) and cheesy instrumentation, this is a collection of quite well-crafted baroque pop and blue-eyed soul and psychedelic Hendrix-inspired tunes. The only real annoyance here is the poor vocals, which are so bad that they almost ruin these tunes. But they don't. The first two tunes ("Green Things from Outer Space" and "Emptiness Gone") are very well-crafted pop tunes with smooth harmonies and some interesting intervallic Wes-type playing by Terje on "Emptiness Gone". Other good pop tunes are "Driftin" (same feeling and sound as the Rascals' "Groovin", with Terje on vocals), "I'm Counting on You" (a soul pop tune with a few early signature Terje guitar licks), "You" (slow-tempo pop ballad with some 'groovy' organ), and "You're Right About Me" (a GREAT country pop upbeat tune with some clean rockabilly pickin' by Terje, and a great 'a-ha-ha-ha' chorus! plus a few great Terje solos that sound the most like the Terje we all know of any solos on this album). Then there are the extremely Hendrix-alike tunes: "Ain't No Use" (very psychedelic with Terje doing his best Hendrix vocals and Hendrix guitar jam - the whole psych shebang - backwards tape, druggy talking vocals, impressive if very derivitive guitar playing, and wide array of psych effects); "Hey Jimi" (obviously a play on Hendrix's "Hey Joe"); and "Do You Dream" (the ending track with laughable mix-bag of psych effects and the whole "Are You Experienced?" thing - obviously a take on that very tune). In between all the pop, soul, psych, etc., there is a pretty cool instrumental track entitled "Night of the Lonely Organist and His Mysterious Pals" which contains some really nice organ playing - a very upbeat jam with an unspectacular guitar solo - great organ but really cheesy "space-sounds" intro and exit.
~ Review from jeffgower.com.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leigh_Stephens wrote:Leigh Stephens is an American guitarist and songwriter.

Stephens became famous as the former lead guitarist of the San Francisco psychedelic rock group Blue Cheer. He was ranked number 98 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time. He has claimed to have been the only member of the band who did not use drugs.His replacement as Blue Cheer's lead guitarist was Randy Holden.

Stephens went on to form Silver Metre in 1969, with Pete Sears, Micky Waller (drummer), and Jack Reynolds (singer), recorded one album at Trident Studios in London, England, released on the National General Records, produced by their manager, FM rock radio pioneer Tom Donahue.

His 1971 album, Cast of Thousands featured among other musicians, his fellow bandmembers from the above-mentioned band, together with the power trio Ashton, Gardner & Dyke, and the two sax players from If, Dave Quincey and Dick Morrissey.[

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&sqi=2&ved=0CB0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpsychedelicized.com%2Fplaylist%2Fu%2Fus-69%2F&ei=D89NVavXLsLxUKqNgIAB&usg=AFQjCNE-F31rNLDEOzO2GUYIzRdglnxg4w&sig2=A9uCgSkalV0_xIKpHsc2YQ&bvm=bv.92885102,d.d24 wrote:From: Connecticut, USA

This Connecticut based band was made up of Bill Cartier (drums), Bill Durso (vocals, guitar), Bob DePalma (saxophone), Don DePalma (piano, trumpet), and Gil Nelson (bass, flute). Previously called the Mustard Family, the band changed their name to US ’69 before the release of any of their material.

Signing with the Buddah label, US ’69’s album Yesterdays Folks from 1969 is said to be the best album ever released by the label. The band combines a great mix of eastern-influence music with sitar along with psychedelic, jazz, rock, soul, and funk. The album is strong from start to finish, opening with the excellent “I’m On My Way (A Patch Of Blue)” and closing with “2069: A Spaced Oddity”. Yesterdays Folks has become a highly sought after record among collectors.

Artist information sources include: bluebeatinmysoul.ca

http://www.last.fm/music/Black+Widow wrote:The group originally formed in 1966 as Pesky Gee! with Kay Garrett (lead vocals), Kip Trevor (lead vocals, guitar & harmonica), Jim Gannon (guitar & vocals), Bob Bond (bass guitar), Clive Box (drums), Jess “Zoot” Taylor (organ & piano), Clive Jones (sax & flute). The band released one album for Pye Records as Pesky Gee!, 1969’s Exclamation Mark, before Garrett left the band. The remaining band members continued on as Black Widow and released their debut album Return to the Sabbat in 1969. Perhaps better known than their music was the band’s use of occult references in their music and their live performances, which were made more controversial with the mock sacrifice of a nude woman. The band attracted further controversy by consulting infamous witch Alex Sanders for advice.

http://rocknrollperolas.blogspot.gr/2014/07/prog-psych-rock-man-made-same-1971.html wrote:Pearl coming from Canada, formed in Montreal in the late 60s. The group Man Made has launched a unique and rare album in 1971 and soon fell into obscurity, unfortunately almost nothing is known today about it.
The self-titled album has only 6 tracks, with main emphasis on the first track, also titled Man Made, with almost 20 minutes and occupying the entire A side of the LP, with progressive, psychedelic and experimental passages with great organ, synth, guitar, flute, horn and beautiful vocal harmonies. As for the other songs, all are short and not very original, geared more to the psychedelic '60s rock and some ballads. Although inconsistent, I recommend this gem for fans of progressive and psychedelic rock of the era.

http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=1381 wrote:p?id=1381"]SECRET OYSTER became somewhat of a super group when members of BURNIN'RED IVANHOE, CORONARIAS DANS and HURDY GURDY formed this unit. By the end of BURNIN' RED IVANHOE's career (that spawned seven years), Karsten Vogel started forming a new band taking along with him BRI's drummer Thrige and often jazz-partner bassist Vinding with him. Knowing from the Danish circuit guitarist Claus Bohling, he enticed him into the band that took its name from a track from BRI's second album Secret Oysters Service. The last to join was keyboardist Knudsen, who had never played an electric instrument prior to entering this outfit, but was playing in a piano avant-garde trio. Knudsen would prove particularly helpful as the second songwriter of the group and allowing Vogel to leave the keyboards at will to play wind instruments.

Their sound recalled MAHAVISHNU ORCHESTRA, NUCLEUS, Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi and Sextant albums as well as Miles DAVIS's Bitches Brew. Quite a success and this prompted their record company to release that album internationally but under the title "Furtive Pearl". After a line-up changze that saw the rhythm section get a complete overhaul (Staer for Vinding and Streenberg for Thrige) their second album, Sea Son, is even better but failed to get international public recognition, even if all connoisseur will mostly agree on this album being the band's apex. At one point the line-up of this group was also exactly the same as BURNIN' RED IVANHOE (after it got revived because they also developed rockier material) as well as a third outfit, "Day Of The Phoenix". This did not stop them from writing the music to a ballet "Vidunderlinge Kaelling" released as an album under the name of "Astarte", with very mixed results just a few months before their final album, the much better "Straight From The Krankenhaus" also known as "Orlander".

http://tyme-machine.blogspot.gr/2009/01/psycheground-group-psycheground-italy.html wrote:The Psycheground Group was an obscure progressive rock group from Italy, so obscure in fact that their exact makeup is not entirely known. Supposedly members of Nuova Idea and keyboardist Vince Tempera were members, but I just pulled that information from a random website. Nevertheless, they released this album in 1970 containing five instrumental tracks that span prog and psych while maintaining a funky jazz type of vibe. The standout cut is "Easy," an absolutely nasty exercise in funky drumming, hammond organ, guitar, and bass. The first time I heard this I seriously couldn't believe my ears. Now it's a top want of mine, and with only a supposed 50 copies produced, I know it's gonna be a tough hunt.

http://mutant-sounds.blogspot.gr/2007/06/all-day-york-pop-music-project-lp1973uk.html wrote:This project is made of various bands and individual artists from York University playing various types of music, ranging from Folk over Progressive Rock till electronic Music. This explains the title of the LP : "York Pop Music Project". The York university, for years, has been known amongst many thinks for its excellent "Music studies" under its "Arts and Humanities" department. Some students, back in 1973 decided to record some music. All of them did do this in his / her own style and according to their tastes. The result was released privately as an LP and sold mainly to fellow students, friends and family.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almendra_%28band%29 wrote:
Almendra was one of the most important rock and roll groups from Buenos Aires, Argentina in the late 1960s.

Led by guitarist and lyricist Luis Alberto Spinetta, Almendra released between 1968 and 1971 a few singles and two albums that revolutionized the sound of Argentine rock for the remainder of the 20th century and almost single-handedly changed the way local rock music was perceived by critics and audiences. Widely compared to The Beatles by their local contemporaries, Almendra did not survive the 1960s and the making of the difficult second album, though all individual members went on to form the backbone of Argentine rock in the 1970s.

http://therisingstorm.net/relatively-clean-rivers-self-titled/ wrote:This album comes out of the mind of Phil Pearlman. Pearlman is a veteran of the American 60’s rock scene, being the brains behind such epic psych albums Beat of the Earth and the great Electronic Hole. Relatively Clean Rivers’ only album was released in 1975/76 though it sounds straight out of 1969. This album is extremely rare and has proven to be quite a controversial privately financed release.

Some feel this album is the second coming, with strong apocalyptic acid visions and wonderful musicianship. Others feel that it’s a solid rural rock record with strands of late period psychedelia. It’s important to note that Relatively Clean Rivers was name checked as an influence in a recent interview (via Record Collector magazine) with a Wilco band member concerning their latest album release. This Wilco band member called the record a 60’s guitar album that is “economic.” Regardless, RCR may not be the second coming but it’s still a great album from a period in rock (1974-75) that was thought to be void of such hidden country psych gems.

It’s really a quiet, flowing rural record that has many unsettling, strange moments. At first listen Hello Sunshine immediately stands out amongst the crowd. This song is pretty great, sounding like a stoned underground version of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Everything comes off very natural and the music never sounds forced or dishonest. Much of the record is predominately acoustic, though Journey Through The Valley has some strong electric guitar acid leads. Other tunes like the effects laden Babylon are very spacey and almost veer towards progressive rock. The album closes with the reflective A Thousand Years. It’s another strong composition with some eastern influenced acoustic guitar playing, lyrics with bizarre religious overtones and backward cymbals. Relatively Clean Rivers is not bound to be everyone’s cup of tea, though fans of rural rock should investigate this great private press release.

http://badcatrecords.com/BadCat/NEWwave.htm wrote:
Signed by Ken Handler's small L.A.-based Canterbury Records, the pair debuted with 1967's somewhat pretentiously titled "The Sound of the New Wave". Produced by Handler, most of the album's 11 tracks are originals that showcase the pair's heavily orchestrated soft-pop moves. Lots of references carry this as a psych effort. but other than the cover art, be forewarned that it isn't. Tracks such as 'Shadows of Good Bye', 'The Evening Mist - A Mounring Dew' and 'In a Lonely Towne' aptly exhibit the duo's decent voices and nice harmony work. Most of the songs boast fairly attractive melodies, though the arrangements are occasionally overwhelming and their lyrics suffer from standard college student angst which probably drove young female English majors crazy. Stuff like 'Live for Today' and the dreadful 'Autrefois (J'ai AIme Une Femme)' (the one non-original) are simply too MOR for my personal tastes, but anyone who likes late era Chad and Jeremy or Peter and Gordon (the phase where they started to get arty) might enjoy this lesser known act. Elsewhere, two 45s were lifted from the album::



- 1967's 'Where Do We Go from Here' b/w 'Not from You' (Canterbury catalog C-503

- 1967's 'Little Dreams' b/w Autrefois' (Canterbury catalog C-512)

http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=3133 wrote:Synanthesia biography
Synanthesia were a hybrid of Incredible String Band, acid folk, Comus-esque darkness ala, First Utterance and jazz.These styles/genres combined to make for quite an original sound.Jim Frazer's sax and flute sounding somewhat like a cross between Keith Gemmell (Audience/Stackridge),David Jackson (VdGG) and Harold McNair (Donovan,et al). The closest sounding bands that can be referenced are probably Dr Strangely Strange and Jan Dukes de Grey.

Formed in London,England in 1968 by guitarist,Les Cook, SYNANTHESIA were a trio with an 18 year old,ex soul bassist,Dennis Holmes,who switched to guitarand vibes.The trio is completed by jazz sax and flautist,Jim Fraser.They performed in and around the London area and garnered interest from the newly formed Chrysalis record label. One of the venues that they would frequent was the 'infamous',Three Tuns in Beckenham Kent,home to DAVID BOWIES Arts Lab. It is rumoured that Synanthesia were for a time Bowie's backing band before he then recruited THE HYPE and then,more famously,Hull's RATS,who becames THE SPIDERS FROM MARS.

SYNANTHESIA eventually recorded there only album,'Synanthesia', in 1969 for RCA.Unfortunately,RCA weren't interested enough to promote the band.Without RCA's backing and the lack of airplay on the radio,Synanthesia split and the threesome went their seperate ways.

SYNANTHESIA'S only album has a unique sound.Falling somewhere between FOREST,INCREDIBLE STRING BAND,COMUS and JAN DUKE de GREY with a hint of AUDIENCE and VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR.The last two bands are included owing to Les Cook's sax and flute styles.

http://www.last.fm/music/Robert+Calvert wrote:Robert Calvert is best known as the on-off frontman of influential rock group Hawkwind. Robert was born in 1945 in Pretoria, South Africa. His family moved to Kent in England in 1947. He grew up wanting to be a fighter pilot but ended up a writer, an enthusiastic participant in the 1960s London psychedelia subculture.
After meeting Hawkwind co-founder Dave Brock in 1970, Robert joined the underground icons as resident poet, reading his work amid strobes and light cascades on stage.

Seeking a break from touring, Robert left Hawkwind in 1973 and recorded two solo albums, Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters (featuring Brian Eno and Arthur Brown) and Lucky Leif and the Longships (produced by Eno). In 1975 he rejoined Hawkwind as their frontman and main lyricist, staying on for three years before leaving for the second time in 1978. Through the end of the 70s and into the 80s up to his death from a heart attack in 1988 he produced numerous poetic and musical works, as well as short stories and novels.
Robert is believed to have been bi-polar and spent much of his adult life in states of mania, depression or recovering in mental institutions.