[ aquarius records — Rock Pop 60s Psych Garage ]

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Showing results 1201 through 1250 of 1515.

Cool vinyl-only comp of German beat groups.

Cool vinyl-only comp of German beat groups - this one including Cindy & Bert's "Hund Der Baskervilles", a re-write of Black Sabbath's "Paranoid"!!!

From the label that brought us Dust Sucker and Mersey Trout (the Magic Band live in Liverpool) comes a collection of recordings -- from the 1920's to the 1960's -- which serve to illuminate the vast musical influences of the enigmatic and inimitable Don Van Vliet a.k.a Captain Beefheart. As one might imagine, such a musical map would surely cut a broad swath. While many of the tracks have a direct connection to the Captain's works like "New Minglewood Blues" by the Noah Lewis Jug Band, whose opening lines are exactly the same as "Sure 'Nuff 'n' Yes I Do". Other tracks, like those by Blind Willie Johnson and Rahsaan Roland Kirk point out obvious influences on Vliet's vocal style and proclivity for playing two wind instruments at once. While the majority of tracks here are early blues & string band recordings -- Blind Blake, Victoria Spivey & Lonnie Johnson, Uncle Bud Landress, Al Simmons, Blind Joe Taggert, among others -- there's also plenty of jazz cuts -- Charlie Parker, Cab Calloway -- and oddballs like Lord Buckley, The Fang and Hawaiian slack key players Kanui & Lula. On top of all this are interspersed rare tracks of the Magic Band, interview snippets and random remarks from Captain Beefheart. Whether you're a fan of Captain Beefheart or not, you just might like this collection anyhow as just an interesting mix cd.

RealAudio clip: Mope-Itty Mope
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SORRY. For fans of Ultra Chicks and Swinging Mademoiselle comps, wonderful playful french girl pop!

Even if it is last year's fashion (meaning: this was released back in October '05), we've fallen head over heels for this stylish boxset! The tunes, the big booklet, the chic black'n'white hatbox packaging... all of it! The folks at Rhino Records have always made it their mission to dish out the oldies-but-goodies, but they have truly outdone themselves with this '60s girl group extravaganza. Each of the four cds contains thirty songs for a whopping total of one hundred and twenty songs! They cover a lot of ground from pert pop to smoooth soul, from peppery R&B to sashaying country. Many of the featured artists will undoubtably be more than familiar to you, but we'd wager that just as many will be new to you. That said, even if you do recognize the faces, you very well might not recognize the songs. This boxset is dedicated to shining a rosy glowing spotlight on the more obscure tunes. Aaah, some things -- such as good music -- never go out of style.

Glitter-associated junkshop finds from the '70s.

Yo, hippies! Holy crap, we've just got 3 copies of this fancy box set, which comprises a reissue (on two cds) of the triple LP set documenting performances at the legendary Glastonbury Fayre festival of 1971. Artists on cd one include Hawkwind, David Bowie, The Greatful Dead (a 24 minute "Dark Star...bury"), Marc Bolan, Mighty Baby, Brinsley Schwarz, Pete Townsend, and Skin Alley. Disc two is a doozy too with Daevid Allen & Gong (23 minutes from them), The Pink Fairies (famous renditions of "Do It" and "Uncle Harry's Last Freak-out", which Fairies fans probably have already) and last but not least, the Edgar Broughton Band (their freak anthem "Out Demons Out", 20 minutes long here). Wow. That blows Coachella or the Pitchfork Festival out of the water, don't it? And then, there's also a DVD in this box, "Glastonbury Fayre - The Movie", featuring performance footage of Terry Reid, Fairport Convention, Family, Arthur Brown, Traffic, Melanie, and Quintessence. Haven't watched it yet but how could it not be cool? NTSC, region free. The whole thing is packaged as a facsimile of sorts of the original, complete with inserts, poster, etc.

Last list we had the Great Googly Moo, a delightful compilation of nonsense novelty tunes from the early rock era, from the mid '50s thru the mid '60s. We mentioned it was the sequel to another comp, this one, Great Googa Mooga, released in 2003. Same idea, songs with wacky verbiage. Like it says on the cover: "These Words Don't Make No Sense!". And what words they are, here's a sampling from some of the song titles, all run together: ookey ook bip bop bip um bow bow bim bam ting ting boom scat voo-it voo-it du-bi-a-do oochie pachie mamo mamo boom pacha boom ooh poo pah doo yacka hoom boom ay la bah mama oom mow mow bama lama bama loo oo-ma-liddi loo-key doo-key!!! Plus of course you get, not only "Great Googa Mooga" (by Tom & Jerrio, 1965), but also "Good Googa Mooga" (by The Magic Tones, 1953). Little Richard appears here, also LaVern Baker, The Rivingtons, Little Anthony & The Imperials, Richard Berry, and plenty others, more obscure, that we hadn't really heard of before (except on the other comp, maybe). The Bobbettes, Billy Byrd & His Penguins, The Chips, Dolly Cooper, King Coleman... There's 27 tracks in total. Some more RnB, some more doo wop, some more surf. Great stuff, just like its sequel, loads of fun. Makes you wonder if these early rock n' rollers were inspired by the church meetings of snake handling holy rollers, the whole speaking-in-tongues thing, 'cause the vocals/lyrics here are positively glossolaliac! There's obviously some connection. Comes complete with a thick cd booklet of detailed liner notes. Now we want more, hoping a third volume is in the works!

MPEG stream: Rubber Biscuit
MPEG stream: (You Got) The Gamma Goochee
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The title says it all. This is a compilation of jumpin' and jivin' treats from the early years of rock n' roll, circa 1955-1965 or thereabouts, and the one thing they all have in common (besides rockin') are NONSENSE LYRICS... thus amongst the 24 tracks here you'll find such wonderful gibberish statements as "Tutti Frutti", "Woojamacooja", "Chop Chop Boom", "Bom Bom Lulu", "Yodee Yakee", "(You Got) The Gamma Goochee", "She Goes Oonka Chicka", "Shtiggy Boom", "From The Top Of Your Guggle (To The Bottom Of Your Zooch)" and more, including of course "Great Googley Moo". Some of this strange lingo represents onomatopoeic sound effects. Others, teen slang that was hip at the time. Or, just plain ol' silliness. And some, no doubt, are euphemistic stand ins for other words, often risque if you read between the lines. Wow, what a great comp! Fun, fun stuff, this is rock and roll at its purest, it don't have to make sense, it just has to rock, and roll, and make those crazy kids dance!! And, we're pretty sure both Lewis Carroll and Dr. Seuss would approve. The artists, most of 'em fairly obscure, nowadays anyway, include Little Richard (naturally), Screamin' Jay Hawkins, The Spaniels (with the title track), The Kingsmen, The Tammys, The Premiers, The Astro-Jets, LaVern Baker, Gene & Eunice, Shirley Ellis, The Rivingtons, The Five Blobs, and many others. The thick, colorful, heavily illustrated cd booklet (24 pages) features super detailed notes on each song and artist, along with vintage photos and record label graphics. Really nicely done. Turns out this is actually a sequel to a previous Ace comp along the same lines, called Great Googa Mooga, so we'll have to get that one in soon too...

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MPEG stream: Rock And Ree-Ah-Zole (The Teen-Age Talk)

Any pop lover knows that when it comes to suave and sassy pop perfection, you can't beat France in the '60s and early '70s. With this collection the focus is put on the Parisian pop-psych scene, and what's really refreshing about this compilation is that it's not just filled with the usual suspects. So many names we weren't familiar with giving us such irresistible gems, and enough fuzz and weird elements on lots of the tracks to keep things interesting and not just saccharine sweet. Infusing elements of West Coast pop, the mod scene, and funked out burners, these are sounds that are just pretty impossible not to get swept up by. Filled with decadence and charm from folks like Cristal, Elisa, Les Hamsters (best name ever?!), Les Rover, Pax Quartet, and tons more. No need to stress about what to throw on the next time you have people over for a little party, as all you will have to do is blast this, and watch as feet start tapping, and drinks start spilling, and everyone starts smiling!

MPEG stream: Bye, Bye City
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Can there ever really be enough Cambodian Rock? Don't answer that yet. Because while this double lp compilation does feature the stars of the genre featured on other Cambodian rock comps: Sinn Sisamouth, Ros Sereysothea, and Pan Ron, it also has plenty of others including the heavy psych groove of the Thra Kha Band who have two amazing tracks that are totally worth the price of admission. Plus it's a double vinyl gatefold with copious liner notes about the amazing music and tragic legacy of many of the music's star figures. Rarely does music seem so truly hauntological. Sunny, fun, and grooving on the surface, but layered over tragic notions of the political brutality that would come later. We've covered that history in plenty of previous reviews, so we won't go down that rabbit hole here, but this is a worthy selection of psych rock and garage gems, that didn't immediately sound like the others. So if you're new to Cambodian rock from the sixties and seventies, or would like a really well put together compilation on vinyl, now's your chance!

A complete about face for volume 2 in the Folk And Pop Music of Myanmar (Burma) series of discs. Remember that first one? The manic weirdness was unlike anything we'd heard, nor anything we've heard since. So it's striking that volume 2 is a disc we can at least put in terms we know. What's perhaps most ironic is that the recordings on Guitars Of The Golden Triangle come from a territory of Burma that, while roughly the size of New York State, has been almost completely un-explored by outsiders (Burmese or otherwise). The Golden Triangle (its proper name is the Shan State of Burma) is little known outside its own country, but it is the territory of smugglers, seperatist rebels and some extraordinary opium production. Since it is forbidden for foreigners to visit the Shan State, it's no surprise that its flourishing cottage industry of a music scene would be completely unknown to outsiders. How Mr. Bishop got these tracks is anyone's guess, but as we've seen before the Sublime Frequencies folks have their ways with picking up ripe fruit that others walk straight past. The 21 tracks here, recorded during the early seventies, range between heavy fuzzed out psych -- like something much more likely to have come out in the late sixties -- to sugary crooning pop -- much more akin to its decade. Little is known of most of the artists: for instance the most well represented here -- Saing Saing Maw -- is only known to have been a truck driver originally (shades of Elvis anyone?) and after striking his music career apparently returned to truck driving.

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Similar to the now-impossible-to-get, vinyl-only "Turkish Delights" compilation (but on cd and in stock!) is this great collection of vintage psychedelic rock music from Turkey. With 22 tracks, spanning the years 1966-1975, this collection is a great

RealAudio clip: Sor Kendine
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We've said it before and we'll say it again. It never ceases to amaze us how there can be such an endless supply of killer '60s garage-psych songs to fill up compilation after compilation. Sure, once in a while there's some overlap, but really, it's incredible how many obscure bands managed to release a completely charming 7" single or two and then vanished - but their music lives on, thanks to comps like this one! The appropriately named High All The Time features a whole bunch of turned-on, drugged-out sounds circa 1966-69, all of it fuzzy and freaky and sometimes beautifully melodic. 14 tracks, 11 bands, mostly from the US of A, though two bands are Dutch and one Swedish (The Shakers, doing "Who Will Buy (These Wonderful Evils)", a classic acid-guitar drenched track we know from another comp that took that for its title. But that Shakers song is the only thing here we'd heard before. Opening the proceedings, Mammoth takes a Kinks "You Really Got Me" type riff and fuzzes it up big time, hinting at Blue Cheer style heaviness. Then, getting even freakier, The Hobbit tosses some musique concrete sound FX into their exotic "Author's Message". Next up, Dragonfly's "Celestial Dream" is indeed pretty dreamy, coming from a band who wore wild dragonfly-wing facepaint.... so, we won't describe all the tracks, but suffice to say they're all quite groovy, and varied, and definitely high all the time, yeah! No bummers here. Bad trips, yes, well, there's The Darelyck's track "Bad Trip", a propulsive sorta-rockabilly garage beat number with the vocalist mainly chanting "It was a bad trip, it was a bad trip" over and over, way cool... From start to finish, this is comp is our idea of a good trip. And the finish is a strong one, tracks 13 and 14 being both sides of The Beautiful Daze's "City Jungle Parts 1 & 2", with Part 2 being a particularly dense, droning, throbbing piece of work. This compact disc edition (the comp itself is a reissue, apparently originally released on LP back in the late '70s or '80s we'd guess) includes in its booklet what meager information they were able to dig up about each band, with discographical information and sometimes graphics from the original 45's.

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Naturally, this is the sequel to the excellent '60 fuzz psych compilation High All The Time Vol. 1. We reviewed that last year, it was a pretty darn killer comp indeed, and so is this follow-up! There's 14 cuts from 14 bands, from garages all across the US of A, circa 1966-'74. Like Vol. 1, this is the place to go for savage fuzz romps -and- trippy psychedelic excursions. And as before, it's all obscure stuff. The only artist we'd heard of before is J.D. Blackfoot, one of the few acts here who managed to release a long-player, most of the rest of 'em having but one rare 7" single to their name. However, the A-side (or sometimes B-side, let's hear it for B-sides!) to that single was often enough of a recorded legacy to earn 'em a pool of drool from record collectors and garage psych connoisseurs for ever and ever. Listen in, you can hear why. This starts off plenty fierce with the aforementioned J.D. Blackfoot's gruffly-sung "Epitaph For A Head". Classic & wild! That's followed by "Time Out To Fly" by Magical Mist, almost as fuzzy but a bit more dreamily moody as befits their name, reminding us of the Electric Prunes by the end of the tune. But even the most melancholic and melodic cuts here tend to erupt eventually into at least one white hot blast of acid guitar soloing excess, if not totally freaking out into full-on scuzz stomp. Other highlights include the lovely "Sad Now" by Solid Ground, and a not-so-folky rendition of "If I Were A Carpenter" by Grant's Blueboys, among others. Another cool cover here is Chesmann Square's "Circles", originally by The Who. The line up also includes: American ZOO, Thundering Heard, ESB, Thorinshield, Odyssey, Ocelot, Jordan, World Column, and Catfish Knight & The Blue Express. The glossy cd booklet contains brief (sometimes very brief!) liner notes and discographical information for each act, with vintage photos and 45 labels in some cases too. Yep, just what we were hoping for when we realized that Volume 1 of course implied a Volume 2... By the way, we've reached the point in time where we're seeing reissues of reissues, apparently both volumes came out on vinyl in the early '90s but now's the first time they've appeared on cd.

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Comp of Little Richard soundalikes!

Dang, we've got a good one here for followers of the whole "Wooden Guitar" crowd -- Wooden Guitar being the name of another compilation on another label, devoted to guitarists doing acoustic solos in the tradition of John Fahey and the other folky folks on his classic Takoma label roster. That's more or less the idea here too, except that in addition to contemporary flame-keepers of the form like Pelt's Jack Rose and Cul de Sac's Glenn Jones, this comp features quite a few veteran string pickers who were part of the '60s scene -- some of 'em just recently been coaxed out of retirement. There's a few archival cuts dating from decades back, but a lot of this is newly recorded, and much of it is as yet otherwise unreleased, live and studio tracks both. Not all the names are familiar but when you hear 'em you'll want to hear more. The line-up includes the aforementioned Rose and Jones, along with Sandy Bull, John Fahey, Harry Taussig, Harris Newman, Brad Barr, Bern Nix, Steve Mann, Janet Smith, Terry Riley and his son Gyan, Suni McGrath, Bob Hadley, Kaki King, and Max Ochs (whose Fahey-dedicated track "Inspirational Anthem" gives this collection its title, and appears here twice, once in a version recorded in '69 and another from just last year). Moods and techniques vary, from the more old timey to the Eastern-tinged to the jazz-flecked. But it's all totally entrancing, hypnotic, transportational music. Several generations of adventurous American acoustic guitarists are represented here and it's nice to know that this musical movement looks to be going on strong into the future. A fine comp indeed!

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Achtung! Last chance to get with the In-Kraut, if you haven't already! This excellent series' third (and, sadly, final) volume offers up another twenty tracks of rare, super groovy dancefloor filling fodder from West Germany, circa 1967 to 1974, all of it pretty amazing and also amusing, in that it's generally waaay over the top and ultra-kitschy. In fact some of these tracks are so ridiculous, sooo deliberately go-go ga-ga "psychedelic" and "hip" and "groovy" that it's almost like they're parodies of these sort of swingin' sixties sounds, a la Austin Powers - who if he were German, would be getting down to exactly these sorts of swinging tunes. If you're already an In-Kraut initiate you know what to expect: a mix of instrumentals and vocal numbers (speaking of vocal numbers, "Butterflies Never Cry" by Georgees is INSANE, utterly out of hand) done by big band-ish combos looking to wow the hipster denizens of Deutschland's discotheques back in the day. Which means this stuff is delightfully dated and far out at once, with fuzzy acid rock guitars slipped in alongside the funky beats, jazzy, zazzy horns, and lush orchestral maneuvers. Other than the Peter Thomas Sound Orchestra (whose "World Is Gone" is almost as disturbing as it is gleefully goofy and groovy) we don't really recognize too many of the artists here, except a few who also appeared on previous In-Kraut installments, most are totally unknown to us, yet awesome, which is a reason to buy a compilation like this. Some names: Daisy Clan, The Rainbow Orchestra, Inga, Ambros Seelos, Rolf Kuhn, Certain Lions & Tigers, Adam & Eve, Acid, Heinz Kiessling, The German Top Five, Memphis Black, Karl Schiller... and a bunch more. Just a few of the highlights include the Beatles composition "A Hard Day's Night" as performed by Katja Ebstein (which could have been a standout on that recent Easy Beatles collection), and a quite, uh, horny rendition of Led Zep's "Whole Lotta Love" done by Dieter Zimmermann (and band), in the tradition of the Deep Purple cover that appeared on vol. 2. From pop-rock covers to original soundtrack themes, there's plenty of shuffling grooves and slinky instrumentals (Acid's "Hipguard" would thrill Christine 23 Onna) to make this the perfect lava-lamp / mirror-ball crossover collection. Ja, vol. 3 is as strong the first two, highly recommended. You can't listen to this and NOT be having fun! And as usual with these In-Kraut comps, the cd booklet is packed with graphics and text pertaining to each track. It's quite clear that the compilers know their stuff!

MPEG stream: Whole Lotta Love
MPEG stream: Butterflies Never Cry
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Wow, what an amazing compilation! Really, how could it be anything but awesome with a title like International Sad Hits?! We sure do love us some sad songs, the sadder the better. It's always fascinating to observe how different performers and composers around the world turn their sadness into sound. And in turn, how those sounds effect us as listeners. This collection was assembled by Damon and Naomi -- a duo who certainly know a thing or two about sad songs. It features four artists whom D&N had heard while touring 'round the world. The duo have most certainly stumbled on some seriously lovely sad sounds, and now the rest of us can wallow in them too. Hailing from Turkey, Korea and Japan these artists echo a somber '60s folk aesthetic (a la Tim Buckley or Bob Dylan), or in fact are obscurities from the '60s themselves. Actually the Japanese contingent here (avant-folk veterans Kazuki Tomokawa and Kan Mikami, who also performs in Vajra with Keiji Haino) we at aQ and many of our customers are plenty familiar with and fond of already... Though they and the others (Turkey's Fikret Kizilok and Korea's Kim Doo Soo) may not be household names in the USA, and might only be known to a handful of adventurous music lovers, hopefully this comp will expose their amazing music to at least a few more lovers of melancholy folk! Totally fascinating liner notes too, by Damon and Naomi as well as Allan Cummings. A gorgeous melancholy collection put together with much thought and love. So great!

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That's right, another Indonesian garage rock comp, but c'mon, how can you resist a record subtitled Indonesia Screaming Fuzz? One that promises "garage stomp, Indo-rock and beat surf"? You can't. Or at least we can't. Some of the names here will be familiar to long time readers of the aQ list. Groups whose albums have gotten the full on reissue treatment, like girl group Dara Puspita, and legendary Indo-garage rockers Koes Bersaudara (who show up again as Koes Plus), which should give you an idea of the sounds here, and while you might already own those tracks, odds are you probably don't have many jams from The Swallows, Females, Steps, Panber's, Mona Rita & The Kingstons, the Peels, Rolling Beats, Black Magic, Los Indonesios or Banjamin S. But we can promise, after listening to this you will wish you did. The Swallows transform the Kinks' "You Really Got Me" into their own chunk of surfy garage-y hypno rock, Rolling Beats take sweet bubblegum pop and wreath it in a haze of serious guitar fuzz, the Peels do their best Stones (which means they basically just swipe a song and sort of cover it), with some twangy distorted guitars and some sweet vocal harmonies, Los Indonesios sound a bit like an Indonesian Monks, big twangy guitars, and booming echo drenched vox, Females mix classic Indonesian sounds with fuzzy garagey grooves, and introduce some dreamy vox and handclap, and Steps do some Ventures style surf rock, but with buzzy synths and some distinctly Eastern sounding melodies, and so it goes. It's a sound we just can't get enough of, groovy, fuzzy, surfy, jangly, the sound so distinctive, and even the 'covers' reimagine the originals in new and spectacularly groovy ways. Needless to say (but we will anyway), fans of recent Record Of The Week Those Shocking, Shaking Days, will dig this big time, and if you liked other comps like Psych Funk Sa-Re-Ga! Psychedelic Funk Music In India 1976-1983 and Thai? Dai! - The Heavier Side Of The Luk Thung Underground, or if you loved those Dara Puspita and Koes Bersaudara reissues and wanted more, well, here you go...

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BACK IN STOCK! We thought these Charly BYG/Actuel reissue cds were gone forever, but lo! here they are again. Dunno what's up, but get 'em while you can. This is one of the essentials in the series, a triple disc box set sampler which includes tracks from the other four BYG/Actuel reissues listed here (Sun Ra, Shepp, Don Cherry, and the Art Ensemble) as well as rare material by Sonny

Besides being a totally astounding 'out-there' music maker himself, Joe Meek was also quite a whip-smart producer back in the '60s. This compilation gathers together the proof in the toe-tappin', finger-snappin' pudding. It dusts off twenty peppy, poppy cuts from long-gone (but now happily not forgotten) combos such as The Syndicats (check out their terrific organ-laden "What To Do"), The Puppets (there's a mean snarky boy vocal performance on Leiber & Stoller's "Poison Ivy"), Tony Dangerfield & The Thrills, The Blue Rondos and Bobby Rio & The Revelles. Includes lengthy liner notes and lots of photos of the bands' members and memorabilia from back in the day.

MPEG stream: What To Do
MPEG stream: Poison Ivy

Itchin' for some totally trashy garage rawk? Look no further! A total labor of love, this compilation record has been in the works since it was recorded back in '89 at the Purple Onion here in SF. The man behind it is Tom Guido, whose entertaining typewritten story of the entire process fills practically every inch of the record's fold-out photocopied sleeve... old snapshots of the shows fill up the rest. Seven obscure live tracks from the infamous Mummies, Gaping Wounds (featuring He Who Cannot Be Named of the Dwarves), Wild Breed, Carnaby Street Lamp Post, Driving Wheels, Pussy Hounds and Vanilla Whores. Ultra raw and super lo-fi with plenty of shrieks and howls. Limited pressing of 777.

For the second edition of their Local Customs series, The Numero Group dig deep into the heart of Beaumont, Texas and uncover a regional archive of dusty, sunscorched sounds from Lowland Studios. Operating from the late sixties to the early seventies and barely surviving even in the best of times, the studio recorded a wide range of local flavor from a tight knit scene of bands for small independent labels. The 22 tracks here fall into primarily three groups: Heavy southern-fried boogie rock, Crosby Stills and Nash-ish folk, and nascent Yacht Rock, even though we're sure no one here had a yacht to rock out on. While some tracks on here aren't necessarily our cup of tea, it's hard not to get caught up in the music when the Numero Group has done such an amazing job of documenting the history of this scene, with thorough liner notes, a family tree of players and bands and lots of cool photos. A really fancy package. We like the boogie stuff best, especially the bands Boot Hill and D.O.A. (and they look awesome too!). But then there's the final song by Donald Thomas called "Black Night Is Calling Me Home" with its too-high-in-the-mix vocalised guitar riff, a real hoot! Some of us here gonna get this just for that. We're sure anyone into classic rock from 1970-77 featuring dudes with long hair and mustaches singing about their ladies (think Molly Hatchet, Little Feat, Audience, CSN, BTO, Ten Wheel Drive, etc.) will probably find lots to like here. Though all we could think about while listening to this is: MORE COWBELL!!!!!

MPEG stream: Trash One
MPEG stream: Lady Tell Me Why
MPEG stream: Where's Love Gone Today
MPEG stream: No Control
MPEG stream: Black Night Is Calling Me Home

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SORRY.

It's just past the fortieth anniversary of the Summer of Love, and while we San Franciscans have never stopped being reminded of those legendary months of drug abuse, panhandling and squatting, perhaps the rest of the world needs a large dose of that dirty hippy love. And in what better form than this latest installment of the Nuggets box set series? Unlike past volumes, what we have here is a 120 page book full of rare photos detailing the scene and 4 cds compiled under various themes: "Seismic Rumbles", "Suburbia", "Summer Of Love," and "The Man Can't Bust Our Music". Beginning with Dino Valenti's original version of "Let's Get Together" and ending with the Youngblood's more famous version, this Nuggets edition includes many famous and familiar San Francisco bands including Jefferson Airplane, Country Joe & The Fish, The Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Count Five, Blue Cheer, The Great Society, The Charlatans, Sly and The Family Stone, Santana and Big Brother and The Holding Company. Some with more than one track. But the real price of admission is for the obscurities: The Syndicate of Sound, The Harbinger Complex, The Stained Glass, Fifty Foot Hose, Kak, Salvation, The Vejtables, The Wildflower, The Tikis, The Frantics, The Serpent Power, and Frumious Bandersnatch. There are only a few omissions, like Cold Blood, The Fire Escape, Tripsichord, and Parish Hall (though some would argue those aren't really omissions at all) that would make for a more well-rounded collection focusing more on the obscurities (the reason we like Nuggets in the first place) rather than the heavyweights who are quite well represented on plenty of other more mainstream compilations. But if anyone is looking for the definitive San Francisco music experience of the sixties, you probably won't find one more lovingly detailed than this. Trip on and Trip out!

This latest installment in the on-going, ever-awesome Love, Peace & Poetry compilation series of rare psych rock music from around the world features tracks from African bands. While not as far-fetched as the Extreme Music From Africa comp we used to stock some time back, some might still be surprised by this. Of course, previous volumes in the LP&P series have conclusively demonstrated the all-pervading influence of the Western '60s rock revolution on the rest of the world, and we've stocked lots of cd reissues of LPs by acid-rockers from such 'exotic' locales as Turkey, Brazil, and the Phillipines. Not to mention all those Cambodian Rock collections! So of course there's gonna be African bands for Shadoks to compile. And in fact, we think they maybe included more South African (i.e. white) bands here than they really needed to -- not that the chosen tracks aren't worthy, just that they give the impression that Shadoks couldn't find enough stuff from the rest of the continent. Maybe their definition of "psychedelic music" is a little narrower than ours, but we'd have thought some Ethiopian groove stuff, or early Orchestra Baobab, would do nicely here. Too funky maybe? But already this collection boasts a wide range of styles from jazzy to spacey to folkish to heavy, hard rock. There's room here for both fuzz guitar fests (Chrissy Zebby Tembo & Ngozi Family's "Oh Ye Ye") and Beatles-esque balladry (Quentin E. Kolpjaeger's "Weatherman"). 17 tracks total, with several standouts including Nigeria's Blo (now that's some authentic African psych rock there) and South Africa's Freedoms Children (who managed to land three cuts on here) and the proto-metal of fellow countrymen Suck, among others. Perhaps not the strongest of the series (heck, that preceeding Mexican volume was a tough act to follow) but as always, well-stocked with gems -- stuff you're unlikely to hear elsewhere, either!

MPEG stream: Time To Face The Sun
MPEG stream: Love Is The Only Way
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American version of the above. It's not nearly as immediately catchy as the Latin American comp, but nonetheless is a great way to sample the sounds of Damon, Darius, Hickory Wind, and the New Tweedy Bros.

The Love, Peace & Poetry series compiles the obscurest of the obscure lost psychedelic music of the sixties, records that collectors spend vast sums of money on. Following the American and Latin American volumes, this long-awaited third volume brings together gems from Japan, Korea, India, Cambodia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Turkey, spanning the years 1967 to 1977. Authoritative liner notes from OR Records' Stan Denski round out the package. Get this and soon you too will be a fan of such artists as The Mops, Erkin Koray, Jung Hyun & the Men, Mogollar, and the unknown Cambodian combo that provides this disc's very rockin' track five. Recommended!

Spanning 1969 to 1978, the newest volume of Love, Peace & Poetry brings to light totally rare gems from the Brazilian psychedelic rock movement. While we may all be relatively familiar with the giants of the Tropicalia scene -- Os Mutantes (Windy's favorite band ever), Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa, Caetano Veloso, etc -- this comp features far more obscure groups whose albums are sought-after treasures in the underground psych LP collecting community (you know who you are!). But less obsessive folk now too have the opportunity to enjoy these obscurities! Springing from the creatively fertile ground of an at the time politically oppressive society, this is a fantastic collection of songs ranging from sunny Beatles-esque, Byrds-y jangle pop to other harder stuff more explicitly influenced by the Doors, Hendrix, and other fuzzed out acidheads. Highlights include the latter type of thing from Modulo 1000, a track from Brazilian psych crown jewel Lula Cortes e Ze Ramalho, the Zep-worthy hard rock groove (with a touch of proto-new wave in one guitar break) of Terco, and a track by Spectrum (whose utterly brilliant film soundtrack album "Geracao Bendita" album has been reissued in its entirety, due for review soon in an upcoming New Arrivals list, although you can come buy it now if you want!). Some tracks pay allegiance to Tropicalia, others are straight-up freak rock, and all are pretty cool. As with all the Love, Peace and Poetry comps, this is highly recommended not only because it's good listening, but also because it's damn hard to find full lengths from most of these groups, not 'til someone reissues 'em! The liner notes are again by our pal Stan Denski, cover art is again a cheesecake blond go go girl courtesy famed photog Bunny Yeager.

RealAudio clip: Trilha Antiga
RealAudio clip: Miragem
RealAudio clip: Revolucao Organica

Another new entry in Normal's Love, Peace & Poetry series devoted to giving a round-the-world tour of rare album tracks from the psychedelic era. Unlike some of the other volumes in the series (Latin American, Asian, the newly released Japanese volume, and There's a few heavy, rockin' tracks here too, like the Blue Cheer-ish acid rock of The Dark, or Bodkin's Deep Purple-isms, but mostly it's folkier fare (Parameter, Mark Fry, Oliver), spacey, proggy stuff (Forever Amber, Lightyears Away), and some late '60s pop-psych too (Gary Walker & The Rain). Also: Pussy, Dogfeet, Motherlight, Candida Pax, Andwellas Dream, and Red Dirt. Most come armed with a lot of fuzz-distortion. Not our favorite of the LP&P series, but definitely worthwhile for fans of drugged-out hippie rock!

RealAudio clip: There Are No Greater Heroes
RealAudio clip: Maypole
RealAudio clip: Yesterday

For their tenth installment in the Love Peace and Poetry series, Shadoks once again takes us to South America. At first we must admit we were disappointed. This is the fourth volume in the series to cover Latin American psych and so many other regions in the world remain potentially untapped by this series (Italy, Poland, Scandinavia, Indonesia, North Africa, to name but a few). But then we thought better, because we've always known Chile to be an amazing source of some of the best South American psych and sure enough many of the bands on this compilation are amongst our very favorite: Embrujo, Congregacion, Blops, Los Macs, El Congresso, Kissing Spell. Yet there's others here just as good we'd never heard before. In fact this is one of the better volumes in the series, not just because the music is so good, but that much of it was made under hostile political conditions and barely managed to survive, as most records made after 1973 were often contraband, and many master tapes were subsequently destroyed. (Pinochet's CIA-installed military dictatorship ruled until 1990!) It's surprising that given the constantly changing political climate, that bands took so much risk with their music, and album art. Like Aguaturbia, a sort of Latin Brainticket featuring a female vocalist (a rarity on these comps), depicted the singer naked and crucified (a la Salvador Dali) on their second album cover, and even one of the two songs representing them is called "Erotica" feauturing some hot and heavy sounds. Other bands like Congregacion and Sacros take a more mystical and spiritual approach. Some bands are deeply inspired by Hendrix and Deep Purple (Tumulto and Escombros), and others more influenced by the jangle pop of the Byrds and Beatles (Los Macs, Los Beat 4 and Los Vidrios Quebrados). But for all the bands heavily influenced by American and British psych and R&B, it's nice to hear more Andean roots come in to play from bands like Los Jaivas, who mix electric and traditional folk instruments. Another score in this amazing series with hopes for farther flung outings in the future.

MPEG stream: Foto De Primera Comunion
MPEG stream: La Muerte De Mi Hermano
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Following the excellent Latin American psych and Asian psych collections in the Love, Peace & Poetry series (and the not as hot American one) comes two new comps, one devoted to British bands and this one, dedicated to the wild and crazy sounds of As with the rest of the Love, Peace & Poetry series, it should be noted that all the cheesecake blonde girl photos decorating the cd package were taken by Bunny Yeager, the awesome woman photographer most famous for her work with Betty Page. That doesn't mean that they're terribly appropriate images to this comp, but still, Bunny Yeager, yeah.

RealAudio clip: Freedom Of A Mad Paper Lantern
RealAudio clip: Run and Hide
RealAudio clip: Gloomy Flower

Ignore the cheesy pinup girl cover art and instead give thanks that someone finally compiled someof the best tracks from Latin American psych pop groups of the '60s, most of whose original LPs now change hands for hundreds of dollars, and whose cd reissues even seem overpriced. We're talking bands like Traffic Sound, Laghonia, Kissing Spell, and Kaleidoscope, etc. A great intro to this scene, provided you have a very strong stomach for Beatles ripoffs; it sounds very much Of Its Time.

Any disc that opens with Los Dug Dug's doing their super catchy and fuzzed-out "Lost In My World" is all right by us! The rest of the cd is pretty great too. This new installment in the always-cool Love, Peace & Poetry series of comps -- which bring us an international array of wonderous '60s and '70s psych songs you might never otherwise encounter -- proves that things were shaking south of the border way back when, in the realm of rock n' roll. The strength of the Mexican psych rock scene was hinted at by an earlier volume in this series, Latin American Psychedelic Music, which is where we found out about Dug Dug's in the first place. While the USA had Woodstock (and Altamont), Mexico had 1971's Avandaro Music Festival, and several of the bands featured here performed at that event -- and were then banned from playing regular clubs because of government repression. Bummed out by politics and driven undergound, these bands let loose with tons of fuzz (and some melody). These 17 tracks mostly date from about 1970-72, with a few late '60s entries. You'll experience punky garage numbers, some hippy blues workouts, lots of acid rock dementia, and even some lighter, folk-rock efforts -- all sorts of psychedelic era indulgence indeed. The bands: Dug Dug's, The Kaleidoscope, El Tarro De Mostaza, La Vida, The Flying Karpets, The Spiders, Tocho Pilatos, Three Souls In My Mind, Grupo Ciruela, Los Ovnis, The Survival, Nahuatl, La Fachada De Piedra, La Libre Expreession, Ernan Roch, Renaissnace, and La Revolution De Emiliano Zapata. As with the rest of this series, unrelated-to-the-music beach bunny cover photos by Bunny Yeager, informative-about-the-music liner notes by Stan Denski.

MPEG stream: Lost In My World
MPEG stream: El Ruido Del Silencio

We were so excited when we heard that the newest installment in the always-cool Love Peace And Poetry series was going to focus on Turkish Psychedelic music! For a few years now, we've been loving all the '60s and '70s Turkish psych we could lay our hands on (which unfortunately is not as much as we'd like). We've had reissues of such bands as Mogollar, 3 Hur-el, Erkin Koray, Edip Akbayram, and Bulent. So, when we heard about this comp, we were excited -- but also wary of getting TOO excited, faced with the possibilty that this would simply consist of tracks by artists we already know and love, from records we already own, with nothing new and unknown to sate our appetite for more Middle Eastern psych treats. Well, holy halva! We couldn't have been more blown away when we finally got this in. Of the sixteen tracks, only five were by the above mentioned artists, while the rest were by artists totally unknown to us. And on top of that, EVERY track is amazing! From the Eastern-tinged, faux sitar, raga-like sixties garage rock of Selda, to the sunny proggy keyboard heavy folk of Ozdemir Erdogan, to the crooning soulful psych of Alpay, to the almost disco-y wild guitar groove of Hardal, to the strange Ethiopiques meets ska horns of Erkut Tackin. Wow! A lot of killer cuts on this one. We just can't stop playing it. Definitely lives up to the standards set by the two compilations that pretty much first introduced us to the Turkish psych scene, Hava Narghile on Bacchus Archives and (the now out of print) Turkish Delights on Grey Past. And why do we like Turkish psych so much? Well, Turkey has a long tradition of musical talent to begin with, and being a part of Europe as well as Asia, the whole phenomenon of East-meets-West hybridization (in this case, traditional Anatolian folk and '60s pop beat) makes for some amazing music that couldn't come from anyplace else. Plus, psychedelia as a musical genre has always held a fascination with the East, the exotic... so psych music FROM such lands has a built-in advantage. Just check this out and you'll see.

MPEG stream: Uzun Ince Bir Yoldayim
MPEG stream: Bundan Sonra
MPEG stream: Kirpiklerin Ok Ok Eyle
MPEG stream: Sur Efem Atini

RECORD STORE DAY 2015!! Another cool RSD release this year that we haven't had much of a chance to spin, but man it looks cool, the Numero Group's, excuse us, Numbero label's latest vinyl-only compilation, this one devoted to wild teenage garage pysch '60s bands from the Kansas City area. No there's not really a part one, or 53 previous volumes in the series, they're just playing with you, making it look like the kind of classic, bootleggy '60s garage comp that compilers of comps like this love - specifically the Highs In The Mid Sixties series. But the music is real, and good fun, charming covers mostly of hits like "Tobacco Road", "Hey Joe", "I Can Only Give You Everything", "I'm A Man", and other '60s garage staples, in the style of Them and The Yardbirds, that sort of thing. All recorded at Independence, Missouri's low-budget Cavern studio, subject of another recent Numero compilation in their Local Customs series. Bands featured include: American Sound Ltd, Bobby And The Fantastics, Changing Times, Dearly Beloved, Here And After, The Montaris, The Mystics, and The Town Criers. Detailed liner notes are provided on each. This is a Record Store Day release, so we have a limited amount of these left, and when we sell out, we might not be able to get more, yadda yadda yadda.