Bill Dana & Joey Forman ‎– "The Mashuganishi Yogi" ( A&M Records ‎– SP-4144) 1968

What happens when some kind of movement,be it from the bowels or a tribe of subversive youths, threatens the very fabric of the establishment? Well, first they(Whoever 'they' are?) feed the fear of the moral majority, then, when those fires are well and truly stoked, they turn it into a joke.
Turning on, Tuning in, and ,worst of all, dropping out, if enacted upon by enough people, would mean the end of the capitalist system.
As much as the many aspects of 'Hippie' were hypocritical, patriarchal and frankly, sexist as fuck;it was the closest any of these 'movements' have come to dislodging the accepted order.
Queue Joey Forman and Bill Dana, two barely known second rate comediens to thoroughly take the Piss out of the easiest stuff to take the piss out of. Agents of the state no doubt,but nonetheless, slightly amusing agents of the state.
The religious aspects of Hippie were as big a danger to its members than the 'free love' concept was for female freedom of choice. So anything that ridicules this great evil is okay by me.
Besuited Jazzer turned Sitar god, Bill Plummer, provides the Sitar in the background by the way.....check out his album HERE!

Tracklist:

A1 Airport Press Conference 6:29
A2 The Mashuganishi On Love 6:18
A3 Student Conference 5:05
B1 The Mashuganishi At The P.T.A. 5:07
B2 Man With Problem 1:53
B3 Woman With Problem 0:20
B4 Chicken Farmer With Problem 1:10
B5 V.I.P. With Problem 1:13
B6 Jose Jimenez' Question 0:43
B7 Smoker With Problem 0:57
B8 Businessman With Problem 0:38
B9 Mashuganishi Farewell 3:45

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Tom Scott with the california dreamers ‎– "The Honeysuckle Breeze" (Impulse! ‎– AS-9163) 1967

This psychsloitation-jazz-pop album is really rather good, despite the sunshine pop harmonies from the California Dreamers,who, as noted before on the Gabor Szabo album "Wind,sky and Diamonds", were ex-Ray Conniff singers who dropped some shrooms and got 'hip'.

They sang on the Ray Conniff christmas album that Brady and Hindley played as they tortured Leslie Anne Downey.So they have a truckload of bad vibes to unload, and they tried their hardest to do so here.

This record would have benefited greatly from a total lack of California Dreamers. Tom 'starsky and Hutch' Scotts faultless Sax work is impressive for a 19 year old multi-instrumentalist.Whats more incredible is that this was released on Avant-Jazz label Impulse.They must have been desperate for some chart action?

Its even got some twangtastic sitar nonsense from the near-legendary Billy Plummer too!?

Tracklist:

The Honeysuckle Breeze 4:13
Never My Love 3:20
She's Leaving Home 2:14
Naima 2:40
Mellow Yellow 4:13
Baby I Love You 3:21
Today 3:22
North 4:30
Blues For Hari 3:55
Deliver Me 2:50

DOWNLOAD the honey breeze that sucks HERE!

Bob Thiele And His New Happy Times Orchestra / Gabor Szabo With The California Dreamers And Tom Scott & Bill Plummer ‎– "Light My Fire" (Impulse! ‎– AS-9159) 1967

As previously described in the Bill Plummer post, I discovered several impulse Jazz Psychsploitation albums in a crate at Camden market in the nineties. I wisely purchased the classic Bill Plummer and the Cosmic Brotherhood album,and returned the next week to buy the rest. One of which had Bill Plummer twanging his Sitar again as part of Bob Thiele's marvellously monikered 'New happy Times Orchestra', along with Hungarian refugee guitarist Gabor Szabo,and Tom 'Starsky and Hutch' Scott on lead sax.
Thiele had produced some of the legendary jazz greats on the Impulse label including both Coltranes, among many others.
Somehow, here he lost his mojo, and produced some kind of James Last album for aging Beatniks who still wanted to get down with the kids but forgot how.
It has its funny moments,however unintensional, like the flaccid version of 'Light My Fire' which manages to extinguish any flame the original may have had.
"Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" is transformed into something akin to Ray Conniff or the Mike Sammes singers;the kind of stuff one would hear on the UK Testcard transmissions of the seventies. 
Everytime I hear Bill Plummers inappropriate Sitar twanging, duelling with Szabo's appalling Jazz Guitar,while demolishing several sixties Psychedelic classics, never fails to raise a snigger from my larynx.I'll give it that....it certainly does make one Happy,but not in the way Bob and the boys intended.

Tracklist:

A1 Forest Flower 5:14
A2 Rainy Day Woman #12 & 35 2:30
A3 Krishna
Written-By – Gabor Szabo 3:35
A4 Light My Fire 6:16
B1 Fakin' It 5:50
B2 Eight Miles High 7:02
B3 Sophisticated Wheels
Written-By – Gabor Szabo 5:31

DOWNLOAD some happier times for you HERE!

Bill Plummer And The Cosmic Brotherhood ‎– "Bill Plummer And The Cosmic Brotherhood" (Impulse! ‎– AS-9164) 1968

The world of Psychsploitation wasn't confined to Pop Music.Jazz also had a large go at cornering the burgeoning Psych trade.
I remember vividly first seeing this album in a crate at Camden market in the mid-nineties.A bloke in a business suit with no shoes or socks on, playing a Sitar!? I was tempted but I had my eye a Don Ellis live double,and unbelievebly decided to buy that!? Once i had got it back to my near-by shop.....yes I had a shop in Camden lock London for a decade or so.....,I unfurled the Don Ellis to play and out slid a double Shirley Bassey in concert album instead!?
So i went back to the stall and complained,and the geezer offered to swap it for something else......you guessed it, I asked about the album with the chap in the suit with the Sitar.
In unison, the guys at the stall cried out "Ahhhhh Bill Plummer!",and went straight to the box containing such treasure.
"Thats one fucking great album man" said one of the stoners on the stall."We got more shit like that if you want it?"
"Maybe next time", I said,let's see what this is like first hey?"
It had that trademark sixties Impulse Records smell as i unfurled the impressive gatefold sleeve and slid the vinyl out.
The first track was the semi-spoken psychedelic rap of "Journey to the East",describing the Cosmic Brotherhoods embrace of the Eastern culture fad that swept the western world post LSD.
A couple of cheesy, sitared-up cover versions of Pop tunes, help fill up the album, along with some free-improv numbers, and one of Bill Plummers rejected Jazz Compostions rearranged for the modern ears of the 1968 generation.
"Journey To The East" is one of the great so bad it's good hits that never was. I wouldn't say that Bill Plummer was the best Sitar player i'd ever heard,but he had a good image,and his shameless cashing-in,although i doubt they sold a single copy of this album,is something to be admired if only for its impertinance.The lack of shoes, Buddhist-style was a nice touch...."leave shoes and minds at the door" said an unnamed swarmi wag,never has that quip been more relevent.
I played this album to death and a small Bill Plummer fan club expanded.I managed to find the great mans e-mail address,and i Informed him of our worship,however tongue in cheek,and asked if there was gonna be a reissue. He replied politely,obviously touched that some youngsters had discovered his music,and that the reissue had fallen through, signing off with a reassuringly unsold out, 'Namaste'.

Bill and his brotherhood in 1968...this time sans suit!

Having lent my treasured Mono version of this album to a drunkard friend of mine,the answer to the time honored question of "What would you save from your house if its was burning down?"was answered....at least for my drunken friend at least, after the house he was staying in was consumed by flames, and he had to climb onto the roof to await rescue by our brave fire service.The one object he had clutched to his chest as he clambered atop the flaming inferno, was....you guessed it.....that very copy of "Bill Plummer and the Cosmic brotherhood" on Impulse 1968! My two volumes of Re/Search's Incredibly Strange Music publications, i'm sorry to say, were consumed by the flames.The last time I saw him he needed to recompense me several hundred quid he stole off me when he worked in my shop,and he was a drunkard,and i didn't check the takings DUH!....etc. One of the steps in the Alcoholics Anonymous recovery programme is to say sorry and pay back any debt owed. I knew he would never do it, so I seized the chance to seem like a lovely fella, and said 'Forget about it", like those gangster types do in Brooklyn.....I want my fucking money now!!!!
Bill still plays concerts today by the way,aged 81!?: but no sitar, strictly on the double bass,and strictly Jazz.
Namaste!

...........And YES, i and my business partners got paid back the money that was stolen.....hope exists still.My faith in humanity restored.Thank you Drunk friend...or rather, my Sober friend.

Tracklist:
Journey To The East 5:58
Pars Fortuna (Part Of Furtune) 3:55
The Look Of Love 3:35
Song Plum 6:27
Arc 294º 10:05
Lady Friend 4:40
Antares 4:25

Bonus Tracks:

Sunshine World (A&M single 1969)
Yentra II (A&M Single B-side 1969)

DOWNLOAD on your journey to the west coast 1968 HERE!