The Way 11/8/2012: Every Mother's Son Back Vinyl, The Cyrkle "The Minx" OST

On tonights show I played my vinyl copy of Every Mother's Son's 2nd and final LP called Every Mother's Son's Back, which came out just six months after their first LP was released in early 1967. I played the entire album after showcasing a few tunes from their excellent bubblegum debut. Technical glitches around the 11 to 12 minute marks didnt allow me to play the first 2 tracks from Back so I used my .mp3 copies for those two tracks before I could get the turntables working again. But the sound quality is just as good and I was able to play the rest of the album from my vintage vinyl copy after the turntable fiasco (probably a bum cartridge).

After EMS I played select tracks from the Cyrkle's soundtrack to the X-rated 1969 film "The Minx". The album essentially constitutes as the 3rd Cyrkle LP after Red Rubber Ball and Neon. The soundtrack is performed and written entirely by the group and their trademark mellow soft-pop/psych sound remains very much intact. Links to stream or download the podcast are below the pictures, enjoy!

THE WAY 11/8/2012

The Way Podcast 11/1/2012: Simon & Garfunkel "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme" MONO MIX, plus rare Cyrkle Tracks

On tonight's show I played my vintage, rare vinyl record of Simon & Garfunkel's majestic 1966 folk-pop LP Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, in it's original mono format. The mix is significantly different from the more circulated stereo mix, the complexity of the instrumentation is more noticeable, the vocal harmonies are tighter and the bass levels are higher. All in all, it makes for a much better listening experience in my opinion, yet another record that benefits from that "punchiness" that only mono sound can provide. I played the entirety of the album, and I think most of you will be impressed with the sound quality as the vinyl copy I found is exceptionally clean.

I played some rare singles and B-Sides from the soft-pop group The Cyrkle after I finished playing the Simon & Garfunkel record. Not sure if any of these off-album singles had any chart success or if they were intended for a follow-up record to Neon but they are great songs. The link is below to stream the podcast, or right-click on the link and hit "save as..." to download as an .mp3. Enjoy.

The Way 11/1/2012

The Way Podcast: 10/26/2012 Return To Form; Jangle, Bubblegum, Garage and Psych

Tonight's episode was a welcome return to the original format of the show, playing my favorite obscurities from the Psychedelic Pop era of the 1960s. Tonight's set leaned heavily on jangly bubblegum acts like the Monkees' Headquarters (presented here in mono sourced from original vinyl), Every Mother's Son and early Grass Roots, Chicago garage-popsters like New Colony Six and the Cryan' Shames, and more psych oriented stuff from the Five American's Progressions. Links to download and stream the podcast are below the pics. Enjoy!

Part 1

Part 2

The Free Design - Heaven/Earth (1969) Original Project 3 White Label Promo Vinyl Transfer

They were dream pop and twee 20 years before the terms even existed. The masters of soft-pop, this East Coast family foursome, made up of siblings Chris, Bruce, Ellen and Sandy Dedrick, has gained a well deserved cult following 40 years after their brief lifetime. Their light-as-air vocal harmonies and jazz-pop arrangements were too complex for teens, but too sugary and innocent for adults, and thus, the Free Design never found the success they deserved. Other reasons also were a factor, namely their producer Enoch Light and his Project 3 label's confusion on how to promote a young, self-contained vocal group, as opposed to the label's usual output of instrumental and easy listening records which were aimed squarely at adults and audiophiles. It's unclear to me whether this record was recorded on the 35mm film that Enoch had started to use some years prior to the recording of this album. I know that the first two Free Design LPs, Kites Are Fun (1967), and You Could Be Born Again (1968), were indeed recorded on 35mm film as indicated on the album cover, like all Project 3 LPs were back then. But on this record, their third for Project 3, 1969's Heaven/Earth, there is no mention of the recording process or what kind of tape or film was used for the master recording and I know that he eventually did stop using 35mm film because of it's high price tag.

Regardless, this is their best album by a long shot. This record found the group easing away from the child-like themes of the earlier albums (kites, umbrellas, little brothers...), and on to more adult themes like the music business, romance and self-discovery. The haunting arrangements by principle songwriter Chris Dedrick are the best he would ever conceive and the male-female vocal interplay among the group is as sharp as ever. The covers here are the most mature the group would attempt, covering standards like Gershwin's "Summertime", as opposed to their earlier records where they covered contemporary pop acts like Simon & Garfunkel, and the Turtles. Dedrick's originals steal the show though, with masterpieces of jazzy sunshine-pop like "My Very Own Angel", the bitingly cynical "2002 - A Hit Song", and the absolutely beautiful and haunting choral piece "Dorian Benediction" on which Enoch Light's session musicians lay down some of their best jazzy touches over the group's, reverb drenched, cathedral-like vocal parts. Enoch Light's production is absolutely wonderful and spacious, and he gets great help from Command/Project 3 staple Tony Mottola and awesome engineering from the brilliant Phil Ramone. Fantastic record.

This album is only available for a very limited time on this blog because this record is currently in print. Light In the Attic, a Seattle-based re-issue label has released all the Free Design's albums on nice sounding CDs. Use this rip as a preview and buy the reissue for yourself on Amazon, or go the extra mile like I did and find an old, vintage used copy of an original LP, which this rip is sourced from. Flat transferred from an original promotional vinyl copy using EAC's .WAV editor and compressed to 320vbr .mp3 using dbpoweramp and LAME 3.97. Enjoy and grab it while you can, cause it'll be gone soon:

EDIT 5/30/2012: As of May 30th, this LP rip is no longer available to download because it is still in print in CD format, issued by Light In The Attic records. See the amazon.com link above to order a copy!

-Casey

The Gordian Knot: Tones (1968) Mono Promo Copy, Verve Records

One of my all time favorite records in the vast ocean of lost pop treasures. This harmony group from the south made an impression at a party thrown by Nancy Sinatra where they had played a set and ended up joining her on a USO tour of Vietnam in 1967.They were signed by Verve Records, (of all labels to sign a harmony pop group, the experimental and jazz focused Verve was an unusual choice and maybe the reason why promotion for this record was minimal), and released one album called Tones in 1968. The group was made up of five members, but most prominent were songwriters and lead vocalists Leland Russell and Jim Weatherly, as they wrote the majority of the tunes on this record, mostly writing individually as opposed to collaborating.

The album bares a heavy resemblance to the Association, both in songwriting and melodies and in the actual studio sound. The album was produced by Clark Burroughs, who had been an engineer working under Bones Howe, who had produced the Association's two best albums Insight Out (1967) and Birthday (1968). I assume many of the same session musicians on those Association records were used on this album, as the bass parts are distinctly Joe Osborn, and the drums are either Jim Gordon or possibly Hal Blaine. And much like the Association's records, the Knot's gorgeous vocal harmony blend is front and center in the mix.

The album's opens with a stunning one-two punch as the songs "It's Gonna Take A Lot" and "We Must Be Doing Something Right" are not only two of the greatest Sunshine Pop songs I've heard, but maybe among the best songs I've ever heard. The band's soaring, windswept harmonies are on full display upon beds of float-y harpsichord and Osborn's prominent bass hooks. Weatherly sings 'It's Gonna..." and his husky, soulful voice fits the song very well, but Russel's hushed, breathy vocal on "Doing Something Right" is in my opinion more suited to the dream-like quality of the material. The Russell penned highlight "Carraway Stream" ends side 1 with a wistful, sunny ode to what must have been a nearby creek. It's gentle folk melody is carried along by soft brushwork on the drums, nice electric piano and more harpsichord and the band's beautiful vocals. The outro is one of the best moments on the record, as the instruments drop out and only the Knot's reverb drenched harmonies remain, striking a melancholy tone as they say good bye to Carraway Stream.

Side 2 is equally impressive. "Year of the Sun" is quite clearly the most psychedelic song on the album, featuring a haunting 12 string guitar melody and the album's most complex and interweaving vocal harmony pattern. The sheer density of the vocals on this track is just amazing. "I Can't Be Hurt Anymore' is a sweet little country-pop number, and probably the album's most stripped down song. The harmonies are absent as Russell delivers an impressive solo vocal over some delicately played piano, harmonica and folky guitar picking all smothered in echo. "Broken Down Ole Merry-Go-Round" is the closing track and finds the band sounding surprisingly like Saucerful era Pink Floyd, with a Gilmour-esque electric guitar line dripping with soft tremolo among a swelling farfisa organ. The band sings a grandiose tribute to a crumbling carnival ride, but the stoned and spaced out harmonies suggest this may be more of a metaphorical merry-go-round, if you know what I mean.

Like I said, one of my personal favorites and one of the first album's I would have someone listen to if they wanted an introduction to Sunshine Pop. Perfect for a breezy spring evening.

The album was re-issued, by Rev-Ola I believe, but I've had no luck in tracking down a copy. I was able to find an extremely rare promo copy, mixed in mono (!), at a local record shop a few years back. I ripped the vinyl to mp3 @ 256 kb/s via EAC's .WAV editor. The sound is mostly excellent, but there are points where the vocals are stacked so high that you can hear a slight clipping in some spots. But those spots are few and far between. Please enjoy my vinyl rip here: http://www.mediafire.com/?yq7lkt3407bkr11, and if you like what you hear I urge you to track down a copy of the Rev-Ola reissue (which is in stereo) or an original vinyl copy.

-Casey

The Cyrkle: Neon (1967) MONO CL 2632

Folk Pop band The Cyrkle hit it big in 1966 with the Paul Simon penned "Red Rubber Ball" and also had a minor hit with another tune, "Turn Down Day". The band's first album featured those two singles and a mix of more jangly folk pop tunes and frat rock. It was a bit of a mixed bag as only a handful of tracks really stand out.

But they really improved the quality of their material on their second and final album Neon, released on Columbia records in 1967. The folk pop sound is still there, but the sunshiney-ness of their debut record is now replaced with darker, slightly psychedelic undertones, especially on the hypnotic psych-folk tunes "I Wish You Could Be Here" and "Don't Cry, No Fears..." and the gorgeously mellow, bossanova inflected "The Visit". But, songs like the band original "Weight of Your Words" and their cover of the Beatle's "I'm Happy Just To Dance With You" still retain that jangle that made the band a hit a year prior to this. There's a great rendition of a Burt Bacharach tune "It Doesn't Matter Anymore", originally performed by Ricky Nelson, but the Cyrkle turn in a more subtle and grooving version of this great jazzy folk song. The highlight of the album for me is the final track, "I'm Not Sure What I Wanna Do", a bouncy little psych-pop tune with great farfisa organ work and a galloping rhythm track. A really fun album and one of the better lost psych-pop records from the era.

The version I'm presenting you with here is the rare mono mix, ripped by me from an original vinyl copy pressed in '67. The mono mix is pretty different from the stereo mix in that it offers substantially more clarity and the rhythm section is much more prominent in the mix, giving it that classic mono punch. Since the mono version has been out of print for years, I figured I'd share it here: http://www.mediafire.com/?iq265xjhmr4c8ma

Converted from the .WAV files by dbpoweramp using LAME 3.97 into 320 VBR. Enjoy.

-Casey

The Smoke (US): S/T (1968)

After the talented songwriter/vocalist Michael Lloyd left the fabled psych-pop outfit the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band in 1967, he soon formed another group called October Country. Mostly a solo project, they released a few singles and one LP on the Epic label in late '67/ early '68 to little fanfare. He continued on however, signing to Sidewalk records and forming a new "group" (still basically just a Lloyd solo project) called the Smoke. The Smoke released one very nice Soft-psychedelic LP in 1968 that went nowhere commercially and has since remained forgotten, and it still hasn't been given a proper reissue, which is a shame because its a nice album.

Most of the songs on this album are in the lite-psych/soft pop vein, baring a pretty strong Beatles influence at times and also shares some similar qualities to other then popular LA avant-pop acts like Harpers Bizarre and Van Dyke Parks. The production and arrangements are very well done, done by mostly Lloyd who at the time was only about 20 years old. Lloyd's vocals are pretty great throughout, a great breathy high tenor that cuts through the mix nicely. At times the album plays like an uptempo psych-pop/rocker with tracks like "Gold Is the Color Of Thought", "Fogbound" and "October Country", with plentiful vocal harmonies, sparkly guitars and blasts of hammond and farfisa organ. At other times the album can be sparse and introspective (Songs like "Self Analysis", "Umbrella" and "Looking Through the Mirror"). And also by employing the use of strings and interludes to divvy up some of the tracks in a very Van Dyke Parks-esque way, you can tell he's aiming for a Song Cycle type feel in certain places, especially in the opening track, "Cowboys and Indians", an episodic piece about the expansion of the American West, driven by a descending "Lucifer Sam"-esque guitar riff and crashing drums and "Odyssey", the closing track featuring heavy use of an electric harpsichord (probably a Roxichord) and a great brass arrangement. Although the results aren't quite up to the standards of Parks' monumental debut album, the results are still great throughout the record.

Unfortunately, the album didn't stand a chance, given that it was on a no-name label and there was zero promotion to speak of. The Original LP is very hard to track down, and it hasn't been legitimately re-issued on CD, although it has been bootlegged by several small collectors' labels. 

Highlights: Gold Is the Color of Thought, Odyssey, Umbrella, Cowboys and Indians. 

While we patiently await the release of this album in a legitimate re-issue format, you can listen to my copy of Acid Ray's CD bootleg copy that I tracked down at a record store a few years ago. Ripped in EAC at 320 vbr by yours truly: http://www.mediafire.com/?ainw0r55whzp5s5

-Casey (twitter.com/thewayKPSU)