Bobb Trimble – "Harvest Of Dreams" (Self-Released LP) 1982

There aren't enough candid Jandekian monochrome photo's as album covers going around I say!? I feel the same about Monoaural sound too,but unfortunately Bobb didn't go for that on this one.

This file isn't the original album,as I don't got a spare three and a half grand hanging around that I dunno what to do with,so the CD re-issue is just fine by me.The three grand i'll just spend on medium level prostitutes,drugs, and a reconditioned Austin Allegro van den plas....in metallic orange.......i'll just waste the rest.

OOOh LA LAAAAA! It's that magnificent triumph of British Leyland cutting edge design and engineering.The beast that is thee Austin Allegro,Van Den Plas....You know you want one?

The reissue even has a hi-quality colorized version of the album photo, which reveals, that Bobb looks disturbingly like UK kids TV presenter,and the criminal responsible for the gay romp that hit the charts in the early nineties "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini"....none other than Timmy Mallet.(Who??? Says the non-British part of the globe)

I can forgive Bobb,with three 'B's, if he really was Timmy Mallet,as he released at least two excellent outsider Psych albums that paid little or scant attention to whatever the fashionable Hoi-polloi of the time was listening to....mainly Duran Duran and the Thompson Twins for want of better examples.

One characteristic, other than looks, that Bobb shared(shares...is he still alive?) with Timmy Mallet,was an enviable talent to not give a fuck about what anyone thought about him or his music,or even his girly voice.This wipes the floor with the shitty arse end of most identikit american sixties hippie folk.There's enough backwards tapes and flanging to please any acid casualty,and behold, a silent track to freak them out if they're on anything vaguely lysergic in nature.

 

Tracklist:

Dimension One - Trust

1 Premonitions – The Fantasy 6:03
2 If Words Were All I Had 4:26
3 The World I Left Behind 2:25
4 Armour Of The Shroud 7:39

5 Premonitions Boy – The Reality 6:21

Dimension Two - Harmony

6 Take Me Home Vienna 4:18
7 Selling Me Short While Stringing Me Long 4:15
8 Oh Baby 1:19
9 Paralyzed 6:16
10 Another Lonely Angel 5:08

BONUS Tracks:

11 Waves Of Confusion In Puzzled Times (Demo Version) 5:11
12 Galilean Boy (Demo Version) 3:07
13 Life Is Like A Circle (Demo Version) 4:44

DOWNLOAD and reap this special harvest HERE!

Fresh Maggots – "Fresh Maggots... Hatched" (Sunbeam Records – SBR2LP5002) 1971

 It wasn't the Punx who first sang about life on the Dole (unemployment Benefit) apparently?Among a lot of other traits that they shared with earlier times,like all those ridiculous 'Punk before Punk' groups that get discovered everyday,just to put that to bed,Punk Rock only existed when it had a name,which was basically all it was about musically,but there were some good clothes at least;unlike the Hippies. Two of which can be heard on this sunk without trace Psychedelic Folk monster from 1971,singing about The Dole...among other topics, including anti-war and anti-monarchy tunes.

This Nuneaton#(UK) based pair  obviously heard The Incredible String Band,and Donovan,and realised just a couple of acoustic guitars and a penny whistle could possibly get them on the Hippie Folk bandwagon,and maybe, able to sign off the Dole? This may have occurred, but by 1972 they were back on the Dole after failing to shift enough units to make a second album economically viable..... a familiar tale.

#The Home town of the great Larry Grayson if anyone's interested.So its very possible that the good Larry would have heard Fresh Maggots at some point while walking up and down Nuneaton high street.I can just imagine he,Slack Alice, Non-Stick Nell,Apricot Lil and Once a Week Nora, standing at the back of the hall while the Maggots were going off on one. Any late comers would have been swiftly advised to "Shut that Door!"......just don't tell Everard for christs sake!

Ooooh look at the muck in 'ere!

Tracklist:

A1 Dole Song 3:27
A2 Rosemary Hill 3:34
A3 Quickie 1:21
A4 Everyone's Gone To War 3:55
A5 And When She Laughs 2:49
A6 Spring 3:22
B1 Balloon Song 3:56
B2 Guzz Up 1:37
B3 Who's To Die? 3:55
B4 Elizabeth R 2:53
B5 Frustration 5:58
C1 Car Song 4:06
C2 What Would You Do? 2:47
D1 Frustration (Live) 5:54
D2 Rosemary Hill (Live) 3:49
D3 Quickie (Live) 1:29
D4 And When She Laughs (Live) 1:29
D5 Spring (Live) 3:06

DOWNLOAD the flys that hatched from the maggots HERE!

Trees – "On The Shore (Expanded Edition)" (CBS – 64168) 1970

Following on from Forest, the group, not the crap footy team, comes another contender for the fourth best Folk-Rock group in the UK and Ireland.

So what makes up a Forest?.....yeah,very good,...Trees.

They were on CBS , got the sleeve designed by Hipgnosis, and sold about twenty two copies of their debut album,and even less, probably 17 of this follow up. It has a very recognisable cover photo,and i hear there's a new pressing on coloured vinyl that i may purchase to leave out on my coffee table for my regular fine wine and cheese fondue soirées. That should cement my place in the bourgeoisie as a newly qualified permanent resident of France under the Brexit agreement......they took my fingerprints the fookers! I get a plastic card with my face and biometric data on it,which leaves an empty feeling after four years of being used as a negotiating chip by both the European Union and dear old blighty........Kuntz!....There was a German footballer called Kuntz i seem to recall.He was a Cunt too.

Its all fine stuff,but some of the acid guitar playing does irk somewhat.It's that fizzy transistor distortion,of which there was rather too much of, that spoils the overall sound a tad.Great for The Gang Of Four, but for progressive Folk....Nah!

There's,naturally, a lovely lady sharing the singing duties again, the recently deceased, Celia Humphris.This one can actually sing to boot.....Mmmmm nice. Apparently Cecilia lived in France too,probably next door to me.....i'm that sociable that i would never know.Hopefully she not stressed out by our bastard politician chums in her last days?...cunts!

So to make up for all this bureaucratic fascism i've only gone and  knocked up an expanded edition of the Tree's second and best album "On The Shore",padded out with peel sessions,demo's, and unreleased third album demo's too!?  

Tracklist:


On The Shore

1 Soldiers Three 1:50
2 Murdoch 5:09
3 Streets Of Derry 7:34
4 Sally Free And Easy 10:08
5 Fool 5:22
6 Adam's Toon 1:12
7 Geordie 5:05
8 While The Iron Is Hot 3:20
9 Little Sadie 3:10
10 Polly On The Shore 6:09

Demo's and Sessions:

11 Polly On The Shore (Demo 1970) 5:45
12 Streets Of Derry (Demo 1970) 6:12
13 She Moved Thro' The Fair (Demo 1969) 5:28
14 Pretty Polly (Demo 1969) 4:54
15 The Great Silkie (BBC Session 1970) 6:51
16 Soldiers Three (BBC Session 1970) 1:42
17 Little Black Cloud (Demo 1969) 2:16
18 Forest Fire (BBC Session 1970) 4:09

Demo's for Unreleased Third album (1971):

19 Prince Heathern 4:33

20 Tom Of Bedlam 7:56

21 Cry Of Morning 2:56

22 Bergen Polka 3:33

23 Friar Tuck 6:49

24 Innocent Hare 2:05

25 Van Dieman's Land 7:13

DOWNLOAD if you're really shore HERE!

Various Artists – "Tokyo Flashback 4" (P.S.F. Records – PSFD-69) 1995

This washed out cover is Tokyo Flashback 4.It's 1995 and Boredoms' records were beginning to work their way onto the coffee table,and name-dropped at low level meetings in the bank boardroom.....the Boardoms?...It helped that they had a pronounceable name I guess?

Alan Cummings' notes should suffice as I ain't got nuffink left to say on the matter, except that its the same as the other 7 or so Flashbacks, with a lot of the same people on it....not surprisingly including Keiji Haino......again.Oh yeah, there is an avant garde String Quintet stuck on at the end for those of you with wider taste rainbows.

Tracklist

1 Keiji Haino– Rudra Vina 4:37
2 Broom Dusters– 文学少女 7:56
3 Musica Transonic– Weird 4:14
4 Puka-puka Braians– コドクなギター　今スグ帰る 7:19
5 Onna Kodomo – ふらここ 6:56
6 Shizuka – 世に残す歌 7:18
7 Akiyama-Sugimoto– Hound Dog Blues 6:38
8 High-Rise – Ikon 5:35
9 Kakashi – 裸で踊ろう 5:30
10 Construction – Fade Out 5:45
11 Psychedelic Crazy Horse– あんたがたどこさ~No Wave 7:06
12 Hikyo String Quintet - String Quintet No.1 6:05

DOWNLOAD this flashback to the previous three volumes HERE!

Various Artists – "Tokyo Flashback" (P.S.F. Records – PSFD-12) 1991

 

The original Tokyo Psychedelic noise sampler,or volume 1, which features several bands who would appear on most of the follow up Tokyo Flashback volumes to come. The usual suspects are there again, and, as always, Keiji Haino appears twice,solo and as part of Fushitsusha. Which doesn't help the westerners' misconception that there weren't many Japanese bands in Japan.The flood started here in a vane attempt to save us all from Grunge.

Tracklist:

1 Marble Sheep & The Run-Down Sun's Children– 22 February.1991 8:21
2 High-Rise – Mainliner 10:24
3 Ghost – Tama Yura 10:13
4 Fushitsusha–  Omae kotchi 10:17
5 White Heaven– Blind Promise (Alternate Take) 4:53
6 Verzerk– Heavy 7:12
7 Kousokuya – The End Of The Dawn 7:38
8 Keiji Haino – Just Now 8:37

DOWNLOAD and sample some psychedelic radiation HERE! 

Various Artists– "Tokyo Flashback 2" ( P.S.F. Records – PSFD-24) 1992

I like how it says 'Incredible,...11 Groups from Tokyo!!!??.....they had that many?

I'm sure the inhabitants of Tokyo already knew they had far more than 11 groups,but as westerners,especially comedy western Rock musicians, famously, can't count beyond 11,its displayed on the cover....in English.

In the early 90's,I, for one, had no idea Japan had any pop groups at all, never mind this brand of raw noisy psychedelic fuzz.This is where compilations come into their own,as this series of Jap comps virtually discovered this scene by proxy.Then us western types could claim to be weird by playing their mates some wild Japanese group that they'd never heard of,and go away envious of how on the cusp you were. The aural politics of Envy,or musical socialism in action.....no groups are created equal;unless they're on a compilation.

DOWNLOAD to rediscover the bands that you'd forgotten you'd discovered in 1992 HERE!

Various Artists – "Tokyo Flashback 3" (P.S.F. Records – PSFD-34) 1993

 Yeah I dig,I dig,Alan!

This Alan Cumming geezer gets it right in his sleeve notes. As Japan was cut off from the outside world in centuries gone by,they were again in the post war era,as far as the west was concerned, albeit only musically.

Before 1993,all I knew of Japanese pop music was the bloody awful Yellow Magic Orchestra, and The rather amusing Frank Chickens,who i saw as a novelty act more than a musical turn.

The afore mentioned eclecticism that is so evidently rife in all Japanese music,tended to produce an identifiable form of extreme music that specifically came only from Japan and nowhere else.Their Free Jazz is more extreme, Their Rock is noisier,their Noise is Noisier, their Pop unfathomable, fueled by,as Cummings puts it, an Interzone of possibilities trapped behind one way glass,observing outwards at a wonderland through the looking glass.

Western ears were not attuned to this ,even if they did have the same record collections, their Branes needed to be trained,and the membrane penetrated.

Enter the Tokyo Flashback compilations......ahhh now i understand, I think?

There's plenty of noisy stoner rock, free improvisation,skewed versions of classic anglo-saxon pop,and other unidentifiable stuff.White Heaven,for example, features a rather bizarre singer who sounds for want of a better word, Drunk;but i suspect its a Japanese accent of some form?

As Krautrock was populated by bands who couldn't really play their instruments like those Anglo-Saxon Progressive Rock stars,so had to play within their abilities to create something accidently 'Neu'. Japrock was full of equally unschooled musicians who tried and failed to play the Psychedelia of that tired western template,but instead of playing within their abilities ,they focused on the noise and the freedom and went further.Embrace your inabilities and magnify them There was nothing like Fushitsusha anywhere else,not even in West Germany, 1970......and don't forget Fushitsusha were going even before then!?

Tracklist

1 Overhang Party– Fever 7:49
2 White Heaven– Midsummer Stroll 5:36
3 Fushitsusha – Began To Notice 11:28
4 Cobalt – Woodcutter Mountain People -3:01
5 Komo Ta Hae– Bottom Of The Night 8:47
6 Sweet & Honey– Ritual Of The Sun 4:44
7 Ghost – Suspect Tells Of Dog Under The Sun 6:19
8 Daiichi Hakkensha – All Die Anyway 4:22
9 Uchu Engine– Certificate 6:11
10 Maher Shalal Hash Baz– Tapes (Tuning-Casey Don't You Know How It Makes Me So Damn Crazy-うつ病のくすり~The Night Of Notins) 9:48
11 Schizuka – Mother Of A Child that Has been Unwound 7:44

DOWNLOAD and say kon'nichiwa to japanese psychedelia HERE!

Various Artists - "Tokyo Flashback 7" (P.S.F. Records ‎– PSFD-189) 2009

An essential document....it reckons... of the psychedelic,.....it says here,..... improvisation scene that existed in the deepest catacombs of the Tokyo underground in 2009! Includes live performances by six of the scene's most ungrooviest groups. Recorded live at the legendary Koenji Show Boat venue in Tokyo on May 31, 2009.

Included here mainly for 'Derakushi', which features your scribes' current favourite guitar wielder Kuzuha, who would go on to even greater things as part of Self-Deconstruction,Japan's premier female Power Violence trio.

Tracklist:

01 Le Son de L'os - "Still Water"

02 Bon-No-Kubo - "Untitled"

03 Derakushi - "Red Shoes"

04 Sabo Orimo unit - "Inochi"

05 Touyounomajyo - "White Light Spear"

06 Hasegawa-Shizuo - "Gray ray"

DOWNLOAD a psychedelic flashback from way back in 2009 HERE!

Joe Byrd And The Field Hippies ‎– "The American Metaphysical Circus" (Columbia Masterworks ‎– MS 7317) 1969

After the fine 'United States Of America' project bombed,probably dropped over Cambodia by their bastard of a record company,and kept all the royalties to themselves President of The United States...the band...Joe Byrd, made a similar record,using lots of effects,and a smattering of electronics, named after a USA track,"The American Metaphysical Circus". As political as ever, Byrd unwittingly predicted the Trump years, and their impending end, in the "Four Dreams For A Departing President" section.After Trump could only attract 6224 Morons to a rally in Tulsa,capacity 19000,after he had boasted there were a million applications for tickets only last week on twitter....titter titter.
This bunch of studio bound 'Field Hippies',manage to have made a kind of off broadway Hippie Musical,in the terrible tradition of Godspell,and similar,but blended with the 'United States Of America' album part two.
When i tell you that Joe Byrd received Stanford University's Sollnit Fellowship for graduate study in composition. But chose to 'split' for New York, where he worked as conductor, arranger, teacher, Associate Producer for a record company!???...then that'll go someway to explain why this sounds like a bunch of young 'talented' kids who passed an audition to get in the band.It's an academic's idea of what's cool.It sounds so composed,that it could easily be mistaken for one of those terrible age of aquarius musicals that eventually gave us Andrew Lloyd Webber,and the age of Musical Theatre that has compleatly taken over the worlds' theatres.
Again, there's some of those 'ragtime' moments that Psychedelic America found utterly hilarious,but makes any european wanna smash their record players.
After this I guess Byrd went back to his day job arranging pop hits to sound like James Last.....Phil Ochs accepted....yeah I read the comments section......The Byrd had flown.

Tracklist:

The Sub-Sylvian Litanies
Kalyani 3:50
You Can't Ever Come Down 2:58
Moonsong: Pelog 3:47
American Bedmusic I - Four Dreams For A Departing President
Patriot's Lullabye 2:44
Nightmare Train 3:23
Invisible Man 3:31
Mister 4th Of July 1:46
Gospel Music For Abraham Ruddell Byrd III
Gospel Music 4:28
The Southwestern Geriatrics Arts And Crafts Festival
The Sing-Along Song 4:00
The Elephant At The Door 5:10
Leisure World 1:33
The Sing-Along Song (Reprise) 0:44

DOWNLOAD for a departing president HERE!

The United States Of America ‎– "The United States Of America" (Columbia ‎– CS 9614) 1968

Another group vying to be the first electronic rock group was the ironically monikered, United States Of America.

Their name was of course an provocation—“a way of expressing disdain for governmental policy. It was like hanging the flag upside down,” as the group’s Dorothy Moskowitz explained.The United States of America somehow sounded like a counterculture state-of-the-union address. Their debut album was the work of a group of UCLA students working under the direction of Joseph Byrd,a former student of John Cage,and ,the irony doesn't stop with the group name,a card-carrying Communist (well done you're in the club!?).He envisaged an avant-garde rock band with radical politics at its center, the Psychedelic Crass, and from that combustible starting point came a suite of music that pulls in all directions. Psych-rock and musique concrète leaks into trad jazz and ragtime,a much parodied Psychedelic era genre,and more evidence that Pysch Humour,alongside anyone who is 'stoned' just isn't funny,but with Moskowitz’s beautiful but effectless voice soothing the irritation somewhat.
Never play Ragtime or Dixieland jazz...EVER!

Tracklist:

1 The American Metaphysical Circus
2 Hard Coming Love
3 Cloud Song
4 The Garden Of Earthly Delights
5 I Won't Leave My Wooden Wife For You, Sugar
6 Where Is Yesterday
7 Coming Down
8 Love Song For The Dead Ché
9 Stranded In Time
The American Way Of Love
10.I [Part 1] - Metaphor For An Old Man
10.II [Part 2] - California Good-Time Music
10.III [Part 3] - Love Is All
Bonus Tracks
11 Osamu's Birthday
12 No Love To Give
13 I Won't Leave My Wooden Wife For You, Sugar
14 You Can Never Come Down
15 Perry Pier
16 Tailor Man
17 Do You Follow Me
18 The American Metaphysical Circus (Alternate Version)
19 Mouse (The Garden Of Earthly Delights)
20 Heresy (Coming Down)

DOWNLOAD the united states of electronica HERE!

Fifty Foot Hose ‎– "Cauldron" (Limelight ‎– LS 86062) 1968

Unwitting rivals with the Silver Apples,and the United States Of America for the Electronic Rock pioneer throne was the rather trad Psych sounding Fifty Foot Hose. They still had guitars involved, and had a Grace Slick-a-like as singer; but, crucially a bloke on oscillator, and the guitarist doubled up on Ring Modulator,so we're getting into pre-synthesizer early Electronic territory here.
Inevitably getting lost in the bowel movement of Psych bands from San Francisco in 1967/8 their album became an influential cult classic. Pere Ubu being an obvious beneficiary.
Well, I'd sooner listen to this stuff than The Grateful fucking Dead, in fact i'd sooner listen to Mylie Cyrus than the Grateful Fucking Dead,even though Cyrus is a sexual propaganda-bot for the old world order, in fact I'd prefer anything to another adult orientated psychedelic guitar solo from Jerry Garcia!
Fifty Foot Hose had all the ingredients to have made it to number 154 in the billboard charts, but those weird noises put off the rock crowd and they bombed.Which probably saved them from eventually making their own version of "They Built This City On Rock'n'Roll", like what happened to Jefferson Airplane......stay off the drugs kids.
For artistic integrity to remain intact,the best thing that can happen to you is Failure, or Death.But if you're gonna fail, better make it a glorious failure, like this album,and the Silver Apples' albums;or a glorious death like Jimi Hendrix, who died just as he was starting to suck real baaaad.Like all music,timing is the most important aspect of one's art;but, if you want suck-cess,all you gotta do is turn up consistantly.They'll like anything if you're reliable,repeat yourself constantly, and most important,make sure you're there.No matter what your music is like,don't break up and you'll make it.If Fifty Foot Hose had continued they'd have been as big as The Residents are today,as in 'not very'.And if you broke up,and wanna reform 20 years later with no original members left, that's a surefire way of earning some quick cash....just,please, don't make a new record!? As in football, you have to maintain momentum.The magic is lost the moment a group decides they have musical differences,or the drummer wants to make a solo album.There are NO exceptions!(discuss).


Tracklist:

1 – And After 2:06
2 – If Not This Time 3:39
3 – Opus 777 0:22
4 – The Things That Concern You 3:30
5 – Opus 11 0:26
6 – Red The Sign Post 2:58
7 – For Paula 0:30
8 – Rose 5:07
9 – Fantasy 10:14
10 – God Bless The Child 2:36
11 – Cauldron 4:55
12 – If Not This Time (Demo) 3:39
13 – Red The Sign Post (Demo) 2:17
14 – Fly Free (Demo) 2:41
15 – Desire (Demo) 11:39
16 – Bad Trip (33 rpm) 3:21
17 – Skins 2:24
18 – Bad Trip (45 rpm) 2:03

DOWNLOAD later if not this time HERE!

Various Artists ‎– "Electronic Evocations A Tribute To The Silver Apples" (Enraptured ‎– RAPTCD02) 1996

This is the album that restarted it all. Simeon Coxe was flicking through the CD's in Tower records and came across this tribute to his former band in the various electronic section.Refreshingly not getting upset that someone was releasing versions of his tunes without asking him.He contacted Enraptured and congratulated them,and expressed a desire to get back into music again.
In fact, unknown to Coxe, a german label had been selling bootleg copies of the first two Silver Apples albums for years,helping grow the legend.No spiteful where's the money gone rants,just gratitude that someone had taken the time to spread the appreciation of the Apples work far and wide......some other 'Artists',and money driven bourgois reissue labels should show the same appreciative qualities when comes to the Music Blogs, who have done a Silver Apples for many a rediscovered musician,or buried record labels (eg Vanity records).
Here we have the cream of 1990's UK Indie neo-psych drone meisters,plus Windy and Carl,and Outrageous Cherry,whom i saw in New York and the female bass player was playing unplugged for at least two songs before someone else in the band noticed. Of note is that Scouts of Uzbekistan member, Mark Carolan, is drumming and programming for Alphastone's version of "You're Not Foolin' Me".
Ahaaa, Alphastone, as led by the 'other one' from Spaceman 3,I suppose, Spoaceman number 3, Pete Bassman,which had one of those extraneous members in the group, like Bez,or Chas Smash, who appeared to do nothing.They alway had to have a silly name too, and this one was called 'Digger'...he played some inaudible Conga's,but clearly thought he was Mozart.The only thing he had in common with Mozart however, was that he was an arsehole too. Naturally, constantly stoned off his face like he thought a proper musician should be, Digger had a problem with me and my entourage invading the backstage area to meet Simeon,and drink all the beer;Alphastone were supporting the Xian Hawkins era Apples,who weren't very good. Upon referring to their 'new' drummer, who had replaced the Scouts' Mark Carolan on the drum stool, as 'The New Drummer','Digger' insisted on saying 'Thee Drummer' with increasing aggression until everyone realised that he was indeed 'Superfluous', like the Paul Rutherford of UK neo-psych that he was.Couldn't hear his bongo's for love nor money,and i suspect he had a digeridoo stashed somewhere on his person too. The Silver Apples were better at their next Leicester gig a year later(where I posed as an Observer rock critic),with the original Dan Taylor on skins....now he was 'Thee Drummer', and thankfully, No Digger in sight.I think Windy and Carl supported this time...a vast improvement.
This compilation, However, is brilliant....maybe even better than the Silver Apples' records?...or is that blasphemy?


Tracklist:

1 –Windy & Carl- Program 4:24
2 –Scaredycat- You And I 5:08
3 –Third Eye Foundation- I Have Known Love 4:49
4 –Flowchart- Lovefingers 4:29
5 –Sabine- Dancing Gods 6:06
6 –Outrageous Cherry- Misty Mountain 2:34
7 –Alphastone- You're Not Foolin' Me 6:32
8 –Lorelei - Oscillations 4:08
9 –Monitor - A Pox On You 3:25
10–Amp - Seagreen Serenades 3:28
11–Tranquil - Ruby 4:36

DOWNLOAD evocativly HERE!

Silver Apples - "The Garden" (Whirlybird Records ‎– WR109) 1970/1998

Ozzy Osbourne and Dan Taylor examine the running order of the completed  and notoriously difficult Third album.

With all the renewed interest in the mid-nineties,not that there was any interest when they were around the first time, The Silver Apples took this opportunity to finish the mythical 'Third' album that they had started to record in 1969,until Pan-Am fucked it all up for them.
Simeon told me that it was "Too Commercial",but the evidence dismisses that claim.It's not commercial at all, just a little bit crap.....but not as crap as those albums Simeon did with Xian Hawkins before he rediscovered Dan to finish "The Garden" and tour Europe.
The Can-like repetition,Simeon and The Simeon's primitive electronics are still there,and so is Coxe's warbling vocals. There's also some ill-advised cover tunes,which I'm sure would have been dropped from the finished LP originally;maybe that was the commercial aspect which Simeon was referring to?
There's about four decent Silver Apples style tunes on here that stand uo to those on 'Contact',even if "Walkin'" starts off like a remake of "You're Not Foolin' Me"....well they're not foolin' me!
Sounding like the kind of bonus disc material which blights every remastered classic album since 1990,this is not prime Apples, but it's still an intriguing listening experience.Especially like the instrumental jams,or noodles as they call them.
Sadly just after it's eventual release, Simeon was put out of action for 5 or 6 years after breaking his neck in a tour bus crash.Athough Dan died in 2005, Simeon is still playing as the Silver apples into his eighties, using recordings of Dan's drumming to augment the one man band aspect.


Tracklist:

1.I Don't Care What The People Say 3:08
2.Tabouli Noodle 4:18
3.Walkin' 4:07
4.Cannonball Noodle 5:29
5.John Hardy 2:22
6.Cockroach Noodle 2:24
7.The Owl 3:23
8.Swamp Noodle 2:58
9.Mustang Sally 3:15

10.Anasazi Noodle 3:20
11.Again 2:58
12.Starlight Noodle 4:39
13.Mad Man Blues 3:13
14.Fire Ant Noodle 3:43

DOWNLOAD bill and ben the electronic flowerpot men HERE!

Silver Apples ‎– "Contact" (Kapp Records ‎– KS-3584) 1969

The Silver Apples' second album caused a bit of a hoo-haa,and is another fine example of what happens when capitalism becomes involved in music.
Our most favourite eclectic NYC-based 1960s minimalist electronic pop duo had struck a deal with the now thankfully defunct airline Pan Am to shoot the front photo of the album's artwork in an airliner cockpit, in exchange for including the Pan Am logo. However, the backside of the record featured a photograph of a plane crash. This led to a lawsuit and the record was pulled from the stores,effectively destroying their career. As if seeing our Silver Appled heroes pickin' banjoes in the wreckage of a plane crash would put anybody off flying with Pan-Am, or the chances of anyone but a few penniless hippies actually seeing this image,would send the airline's stocks tumbling was extremely unlikely.They sued because they could.If these big business idiots had any sense, they would have laughed it off, and added an American Airlines logo on the wreckage on the rear.This would have boosted Pan-Am's public image, and even helped American Airlines as there's no such thing as Bad publicity, sayeth the man, and The Silver Apples would have made the Billboard charts; thus making them suck,but at least they'd have finished the third album,and likely made a fourth. I asked Simeon why he didn't release the previously mythical third album (which eventually saw light in 1998-ish), and he said, "It was too commercial", so Pan-Am missed out there....probably why the fuckers went to the wall.A Pox on you and all your houses big business man.
The album itself, is a droning eardrum buzz groove of classic hippie electronica,and is certainly the superior work of their first career.Dare I say Groundbreaking?....like a falling aircraft?

Tracklist:

1.You And I 3:19
2.Water 4:19
3.Ruby 2:31
4.Gypsy Love 5:32
5.You're Not Foolin' Me 6:26
6.I Have Known Love 3:50
7.A Pox On You 5:08
8.Confusion 3:23
9.Fantasies 6:01

DOWNLOAD pan-am's missed flight to coolsville HERE!

Silver Apples ‎– "Silver Apples" (Kapp Records ‎– KS-3562) 1968

I figure that they got their name from Morton Subotnick's album, via the W.B.Yeats' poem,"Silver Apples Of the moon" released the previous year.
Siver Apples were the very first electronic rock duo and an obvious precursor to Suicide,who began their long career of sonic terrorism a year after Simeon and drummer Dan Taylor called it a day after getting sued by Pan-Am.
Simeon Coxe, the singer and electronicist, made his own proto-synth from a bunch of Oscillators and had a variety of levers,knobs and pedals to control the sound of the box of tricks which he named after himself...."The Simeon".
The persussion heavy repetitive sound reminds one of krautrockers CAN more than Suicide,but the influence on Vega and Rev is undeniable.
The original line-up got back together in the mid-nineties, of which I was much privileged to see perform in a pub in Leicester,uk, around 1998 (at the much missed Physio and Firkin), and got to chat with Simeon after saying that me and my buddy were from the Observer.He was much amused by the fact that I referred to himself as "The Simeon" like his machine was called,but I rather liked the ape-like connotations,as in Simian. Thats what happens when you invite drunken Observer reporters backstage when you don't drink yourself and you have a complimentary crate  of beer just waiting to be drank. I thought Simeon looked rather like an urbane Ozzy Osbourne,with his dyed black long hair and round tinted glasses,but he certainly wasn't as thick as Ozzy. I'm not sure if Windy and Carl,and some Spacemen Three offshoot were supporting that night, or was that the gig they did a year or so before,with the new band members,which wasn't so good.
Sadly Dan died a few years after, and Simeon broke his neck in a car accident. This duo were cursed.

Tracklist:

A1 Oscillations 2:47
A2 Seagreen Serenades 2:53
A3 Lovefingers 4:10
A4 Program 4:05
A5 Velvet Cave 3:28
B1 Whirly-Bird 2:39
B2 Dust 3:42
B3 Dancing Gods 5:55
B4 Misty Mountain 2:38

DOWNLOAD the silver apples of the earth HERE!

The Status Quo ‎– "Picturesque Matchstickable Messages From The Status Quo" (Pye Records ‎– NPL 18220) 1968

"Why is there never any Status Quo on this shit Blog", I hear you screaming!
I agree, so here's The Quo's foray onto the dangerous career path that was Psychsploitation.
Long before our heroes resigned themselves to a lifetime of heads down,no nonsense, mindless boogie, they were the victims of some clueless record company remoulding.
All they wanted to do was play some rock'n'roll, but der management sent them to fancy hairdressers,and to buy the latest psychedelic dandy clothing from 'Granny Takes a Trip' on carnaby street. Then they spent a whole album trying to rewrite their hit, "Pictures Of Matchstick Men" twelve times; admitedly with some help from Marty Wilde and Barry Gibb, and to some extent they succeeded.This really does sound like the same song played over and over again.....and thats what makes it GREAT!
That guitar sound is only second in greatness to that achieved by the peerless Glitter Band...amazing stuff!
My brother's first single was 'Pictures of Matchstick Men',a fucking good first single is that! The best i could do was David Essex , sadly not the incredibly cool 'Rock On', but the later number one 'Gonna Make You A Star',not so cool.....but hey, I like it!
Love the Quo too, mainly because Parfitt and Rossi would be first on my list of fantasy dinner guests.Great chaps,who always seemed to be enjoying life.Unlike Rick Parfitt is now,as he died after several heart attacks. 
During an interview, after he had died for several minutes in Hospital weeks before the fatal attack; he was asked if he'd experienced anything during the time he was 'dead'.....always amusing he answered with a laugh,
"Nah, nothing.....it all just went Black!" (R.I.P, Rick in Peace)

Tracklist:

A1 Black Veils Of Melancholy
Written-By – Rossi 3:13
A2 When My Mind Is Not Alive
Written-By – R. Parfitt Written-By [Uncredited] – Rossi 2:48
A3 Ice In The Sun
Written-By – M. Wilde, R. Scott 2:10
A4 Elizabeth Dreams
Written-By – M. Wilde, R. Scott 3:24
A5 Gentleman Joe's Sidewalk Cafe
Written-By – K. Young 2:59
A6 Paradise Flat
Written-By – M. Wilde, R. Scott 3:11
B1 Technicolor Dreams
Written-By – A. King 2:49
B2 Spicks And Specks
Written-By – B. Gibb 2:40
B3 Sheila
Written-By – T. Roe 1:52
B4 Sunny Cellophane Skies
Written-By – A. Lancaster 2:41
B5 Green Tambourine
Written-By – Leka, Pinz 2:14
B6 Pictures Of Matchstick Men
Written-By – Rossi 3:05

DOWNLOAD black veils of when my mind is not alive HERE!

Various ‎Artists – "Simla Beat 71" (India Tobacco Company Limited ‎– 33ITC.2) 1971

The notes on the back sleeve are as priceless as the charmingly feral music....dig this:

"It's been a long time away. Yes, pop music's really leapt bounds from those way back days of Bill Hailey and His Comets. Remember?
A lot of sound has blown since. The Beatles came, took over the scene, then split into bits.
Janis Joplin toppled out as the Queen of White Soul. The first one ever. She flipped out 'tripping' and never came back. Jimi Hendrix bludgeoned into focus. Then turned within and died too.
But a lot of men didn't. Bob Dylan's changed his music, his songs, his message. The Rolling Stones are much together. Hundreds of new groups, several new traditions, a series of revivals and refinds (B. B. King, a great one) have happened and are happening still.
Pop music is India began by being derivative. There's a lots of that still. But there are more Pop Groups here now than ever before. What's a new turn is there's heaps of original work. Much of it worth the world pop scene. Beat shows gell more often. Groups deal out music more seriously. Commitment. And heavy involvement. And backing the growing pop music scene in India is India Tobacco Company Limited. By sponsoring the biggest annual pop music happening- The All India Simla Beat Contest. Last year it was great. This year even more. And this is only the start...
Now over to you and the winners this year. All featured on this L.P."

The India Tobacco Company were not satisfied with sharing out as many carcinogens as possible to the youth of India,they also provided the only opportunity any of these sub-continental Psych groups had to ever appear on vinyl.

Here are the 1971 Simla contest winners for your much needed course of psychedelic radio therapy.

Tracklist:

A1 –The Fentones - Simla Beat Theme
A2 –Nomads - Nothing Is The Same
A3 –Hipnotic Eye - Killing Floor
A4 –Mini Beats - Hey Gipsy Girl
A5 –Velvette Fogg - I Am So Glad
B1 –The Black Beats - The Mod Trade
B2 –The Eruptions - I Am Gonna Erupt
B3 –The Fentones - Until The Dawn
B4 –Brood Of Vipers - Psychedelic Web
B5 –The Eruptions - You Can't Judge A Book
B6 –Hipnotic Eye - Aimless Lady

DOWNLOAD even more similar tunes HERE!

Various ‎Artists – "Simla Beat 70" (India Tobacco Company Limited ‎– 33 I.T.C. 1) 1970

Craaazy maaan, 'cus emblazened on the back cover is this wild synopsis:

"Beat, man, beat.
Man hears the violent waves over the rocks. The gentle patter of rain on dried leaves. He hears more. Rhythm in nature. Rhythm that is hypnotic. And, he imitates nature on the drum...
So music was born.
And, he becomes a slave...bound to music in every facet of his life. He hears music in the tinkle bells of the lowing hers. In the whisper of the sighing boughs. He laughs. He cries. He dances. As the music moves him.
Today he wants to be free. Free from all ties. Even of music. Today, he bursts forth in glorious abandon.
Today is beat music.
Soul-stirring, sinuous music. That finds echo in the hearts of the young. People who are alive.
The young at heart and the alive are in India, too. But they were drifting...
In their own wild ways. In sporadic bursts of enthusiasm all over the country... till 1968 when the oldest cigarette company with a young heart came along. India Tobacco Company with their annual 'All India Simla Beat Contest'."

Well, thank you????, India Tabacco Company for freeing the young of India whilest plying them with your toxic products.

What became evident during the Simla Beat contests was that Indians were as bad at playing western music as those from the west were at playing theirs.

Yes it takes a lifetime to learn how to twang the Sitar,but less well publicised is that it also takes a lifetime to learn how to play rock'n'roll,and all of its subtle offshoots......one of which is the particular brand of 1965 vintage Garage-Psych that the youth of India seem to have taken to heart in 1970.

Its an infectiously charming take on The Seeds and the 13th Floor Elevators style of garage psychedelia that never made it into the garages of 1966.I don't think LSD hit India until later in the decade,and thank Ganesh it didn't or we wouldn't have had the pleasure of hearing these unspoilt naive throwback psych masterpieces....Beat, Man, Beat indeed.

Tracklist:

A1 –Confusions - Voice From The Inner Soul 3:03
A2 –Dinosaurs - You Can't Beat It 2:56
A3 –X'Lents - Psychedelia 2:55
A4 –Innerlite - Zorba's Dance 3:23
A5 –Genuine Spares - Proper Stranger 3:48
A6 –Genuine Spares - What's Going On 2:47
B1 –Dinosaurs - Sinister Purpose 3:12
B2 –Great Bear - Mist 7:21
B3 –X'Lents - Born On The Bayou 4:17
B4 –Innerlite - Baby Baby Please 2:27

DOWNLOAD a similar beat HERE!

Various Artists ‎– "Psych Funk Sa-Re-Ga! Seminar: Aesthetic Expressions Of Psychedelic Funk Music In India 1970-1983" ( World Psychedelic Funk Classics ‎– WPFC 103CD) 2010

Klaus Doldinger, nows there's a fine Indian name for ya?

I doubt that the Indians featured on these Funky Psychedelic Wig-outs were actually all Germans,though it wouldn't surprise me.I have every confidence that our sub-continental brothers and sisters were more than capable of making these Bollywood versions of the 'Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls' soundtrack. Fuzz guitar dueting with haunting Indian Flutes,lead trumpets flirting with a funky drummer beat, like Ennio Morricone backing the Electric Prunes....before they got God forced on them by Axelrod.

Pretty weird stuff indeed,but more than that, it's pretty weird stuff that you can dance to. This is what happens when two cultures clash, for real, and not a single hippy in sight!

Tracklist:

1 –The Black Beats - The Mod Trade 4:11
2 –X'Lents - Psychedelia 2:53
3 –Kalyanji Anandji - Somebody To Love  2:13
4 –Kalyanji Anandji - Bairaag Dance Music 2:42
5 –R. D. Burman - Dance Music From Hare Rama Hare Krishna 2:15
6 –R. D. Burman - Lekar Ham Diwana Dil 5:52
7 –R. D. Burman - Freak Out Music 3:18
8 –Bappi Lahari - Everybody Dance With Me 2:57
9 –Kalyanji Anandji with R. D. Burman - Dharmatma Theme Music 3:53
10 –Asha Bhosle - Dum Maro Dum Live 3:20
11 –Usha Khanna - Hotel Incidental Music  1:13
12 –Klaus Doldinger - Sitar Beat 1:32
13 –Sapan Jagmohan - Meri Aakhon Mein Ek Sapna Hai 2:57
14 –Keith Kanga - Butterfly (Version Two) 3:27
15 –Atomic Forest - Mary Long 3:15
16 –Usha Khanna - Tera Jasia Pyara Koi Nahin 5:29
17 –Hemant Bhosle - Phir Teri Yaad 3:15
18 –R. D. Burman - Aaj Mera Dil 5:29
19 –Kalyanji Anandji - Hum Tumhe Chate Hain 5:43
20 –Ilaiyaraaja Feat. Vani Jairam & Chorus - Thabimayil 4:14

DOWNLOAD the funky junkies of India HERE!

Ananda Shankar - "Sa-Re-Ga Machan" ( His Master's Voice ‎– ECSD 2636) 1981

Behold!Ananda's cheesy tribute to the animal kingdom.
All his years of 'classical training' is tossed in the bin,and his Led Zeppelin influence has long been foresaken in favour of the James Last Orchestra.He has a style that has rivited together all the various aspects of eastern and western culture that results in a mixture not quite as good as either,but in a way is far more entertaining.This album is a bit late to call it Psychsploitation, but time passes slowly in India,so here you are....Psychsploitation from the early eighties,which was the begininning of that truly awful, bourgeois, 'World Music' phenomenon;so perhaps this is a Globalsploitation album for Peter Gabriel worshiping city traders and suchlike.The 'we're not racist cus we like african music' crowd......all are now Ukipers,Trump supporters, and Brexit voters to the man.

Tracklist:

1 Birds In The Sky
2 Can't Help falling In Love
3 Charging Tiger
4 Dancing Peacocks
5 His Latest Flame
6 How Would You Like To Be?
7 Jungle King
8 Jungle Symphony
9 Monkeys' Tea Party 
10 Night In The Forest
11 Playful Squirrels
12 Romantic Rhino     
13 Sa-Re-Ga Machan

14 Teddy Bear

DOWNLOAD some more sitar satire HERE!