The Young Tradition – "So Cheerfully Round" (Transatlantic Records – TRA 155) 1967

They look like one of those generic American Psychedelic groups from the cusp of 1967. They even have the creepy older bloke like many a Sunshine Pop combo from Connecticut. The psych era was a vertitable playground for the creepy old bloke who had a modern wardrobe. Free Love baby....or rather Free Rape...which meant, men could have sex with anyone they wanted even if the person in question didn't want to. A sort of acceptable rape trend (Groovy Pops!) .If the young lady in question didn't sleep around she was instantly labelled an off trend square. The sneakiest way around the consensual sex trap that the human male has ever invented in his long evil history. These psychedelic violators would have laughed at the idea of consent forms, which are looming in our mixed up muddled up society;which will surely lead to a boom in forgery will it not?

My favourite creepy old bloke in a pop group has to be the horrific manifestation of pure evil that was ,real name, Peter Mann,head honcho of sixties sunshine pop band 'The Sugar Shoppe'. It was even named after one of the pedophile's most trusted lures,a sweet shop.

Dig this...he's second from the right.....the one that looks like a sex pervert,not the one that looks like a little girl ready for beddie on the left.

The Unusual Suspects.....spot the perv in the line up.

I was once a sunshine Pop obsessive, and I found this 'Please Buy Me' item in Rhythm Records of Camden lock NW1 in the 90's.It pleaded with me to take it home, and I certainly wasn't disappointed......so i guess I should make a rare exception and post two download links.....if you want to hear the Sugar Shoppe,including drug references, then click HERE! Baby!

The run out of the opener, Skip-a-long Sam, is pure Hollywood cheese Psych gold.

I digress......But, don't get me wrong ,obviously Royston of The Young Tradition wasn't too much of a randy perv by all accounts....he was just Balding! Like me......er...but I'm a perv(like all men) so strike that comment!

The cover art and title,of the Tradition's album, is a naked attempt to infiltrate the UFO club psychedelic underground...after all, Fairport and The Incredible string Band played at all the Psych haunts in swinging London,so why not The Young Tradition?....of course they didn't,but they might sell some records to the less hip,a casual browser in Woolworths,or an out of touch grown up Beatle fan maybe?

However, once the casual buyer got this disc home,and slapped it on their Dansette,I doubt they would have continued past track one. No drums, no guitars,no sickly sweet harmonies,no songs about going to the cinema with yer girlfriend. If you liked Pop music, this would have been as shocking as a John and Yoko album.

Yes, they've been to Carnaby Street,but musically they were the real thing.....they just didn't look like it.

Tracklist:

A1 Daddy Fox 3:12
A2 The Season Round 4:02
A3 The Bold Dragoon 2:18
A4 Watercress-O 3:08
A5 The Old Miser 3:50
A6 The Foxhunt 1:40
B1 Knight William 4:39
B2 The Single Man's Warning 2:36
B3 The Pretty Ploughboy 5:25
B4 The Hungry Child 3:48
B5 The Whitsuntide Carol 2:15

DOWNLOAD the Young Tradition of being fashionable HERE!

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!

Gabor Szabo And The California Dreamers ‎– "Wind, Sky And Diamonds" (Impulse! ‎– AS-9151) 1967

If there was anything funnier than seeing butch professional working class Geordie Eric Burdon 'turning on and tuning in' with his hilarious 'New' Animals project (Whose four albums are a consistent laugh a minute), its hearing Erics biggest psychedelic era 'hit' 'San Franciscan Nights' being covered by Gabor Szabo backed up by ex-Ray Coniff singers, The California Dreamers;who had also seemingly 'Turned on and Tuned In', and told Ray to shove his easy listening miesterwerks where the sun don't shine.
They rebeled by making soft psychedelic sunshine pop (aka Easy Listening with paisley neckerchiefs) backing vocals for jazz also ran bandwagon jumpers in suits and ties.
That should show Ray Coniff a thing or two.
My earliest musical memory was hearing 'A Day In The Life'(Beatles version I may add!) on the Jimmy Young Show on BBC Radio 1 when one was about three. It frightened the living bejeeesus out of me,and had nightmares about the Beatles coming to get me.The Beatles in my dream were all dressed in Leather,like in the Hamburg years.I Couldn't believe it when I first saw the pictures of the Fab Five in Hamburg....exactly as I had imagined them!? Horrifying!
 The version by Gabor and the California Nightmares manges to squeeze every ounce of drama,psychedelia, and danger out of the Sergeant Pepper classic,and leave just a dry lifeless husk behind.....it takes some special kind of insipid anti- talent to be able to turn out some flavourless product thats akin to a platter of beige unseasoned cous cous.
The punks hated The Beatles,but never did anything to flesh these emotions out,whereas Szabo and the gang manage to make the fab four irrelevent in the very same year they released their concept album that launched a thousand dreary clones.
Erstwhile Sitar mate Bill Plummer, makes an appearance on the neutralising of Jefferson Airplanes "White Rabbit";but nothing neuitralised the psych legend of the Airplane more than the fact that they eventually morphed into Starship,who were unforgiveably responsible for giving the world "We Built This City"(on Rock'n'Roll)...for which they should be put on trial for, declared incredibly GUILTY,then sentenced to a lifetime of listening to non-stop world music and French Reggae.
This dazzling display of Lysergic anti-venom, is astonishing in its power to neutralise anything meaningful and makes pointlessness seem like a desirable career path.
But why then do I love it?....I'm kind of jealous of its bland power and ability to dispel the myth of the Narcisistic fools who made the original tunes,and paint over the colours of the Psychedelic bandwagon with two coats of magnolia matt emulsion......Dare to be Bland.

Tracklist:

A1 San Franciscan Nights 3:18
A2 A Day In The Life 3:20
A3 Twelve-Thirty (Young Girls Are Coming To The Canyon) 3:00
A4 To Sir With Love 2:28
A5 White Rabbit 2:30
A6 Guantanamera 3:09
B1 Saigon Bride 2:10
B2 The End Of Life 2:55
B3 Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds 3:44
B4 Are You There? 3:31
B5 W.C. Fields 3:40

DOWNLOAD some WSD the opposite of LSD HERE!

Sketch Erickson ‎– "Sketch Sounds Off" (FourMost Productions ‎– FM-6919CS) 1971

Join the "Decency Rebellion" with some clueless bastard called 'Sketch' Erickson, on a holy crusade to not rest until he turns all teenagers away from religion. He uses unintentional reverse psychology to make christians look like thee most idiotic, completly naff, joyless stiffs that they undoubtedly are.
I love that sketch,by Sketch himself, on the back cover of our hero chatting casually with a 'Teenager'.If there was ever a better capture of the word and meaning of 'Patronizing' then I wanna see it.
If any teen actually listened to this absurd album, they would have become an athiest within the first thirty seconds.
The distinctly ungroovy Sketch, lets Pop Culture have it with both barrels pointing at himself.How Pop art is rubbish,pop music is lustful propaganda from Satan,while tactically admiting that there are actually some 'good' movies,art,and music.....i don't believe you Sketch;he hates all of it,and probably teenagers too.
The only way to break through the shallowness of the pop world is to be a follower of Jesus Christ,says Sketch.....there simply is no other way.
This Religious spoken-word LP with hilariously dated skits about how you can't tell the boys from the girls anymore,and more embarassingly rigid thinking, is essential listening for all you Satan worshipping pop fans everywhere.

By now Sketch has probably discovered, as he slipped away from this mortal coil, that nothing happens after the last round-up.Its just a pity he's not around to burn this ridiculous LP before he returns to  the oblivion from whence he,and we all, sprung.

Tracklist:

A1 Introduction: It's A New World
A2 Art
A3 Fashions: Dramatic Vignette
A4 Advertising: Diet Cola Commercial
B1 Music: What The World Needs Now Is Love
B2 Music: Back Seat Love
B3 Music: Think A Little More Of Others
B4 Literature: Dramatic Vignette
B5 Movies
B6 Television
B7 Summary: I Asked The Lord

DOWNLOAD how to reject supersition HERE!

Ralph Carmichael And The Young People ‎– "Our Front Porch" (Light Records ‎– LS-5560-LP) 1970

Hot outta Waco, two decades before David Koresh was literally on fire in the same hick town, we had 'The Young People',under the auspices and guidence of christ obsessed composer Ralph Carmichael.
He followed Gods callin' and got a groovy bunch of kids together to play some of that soul inflected Sunshine Pop that was so popular in the late sixties, with the added ingredient of some Bible thumpin' lyrics designed to save our souls.....or rather save arseholes.
Back in the eclectic days of the nineties,I couldn't get enough of anything on Light records,and this was a particular favourite of mine.Full of foot tappin' tunes, great breaks ,wah-wah guitar and uplifting vocal harmonies.This is Jesus gettin' funky,with a hefty dose of traditional Christian naffness. Aw bless 'em,they,Christians,were never the sharpest tools in the box in the first place,never mind being intellectually lazy enough to just accept the first,and easiest answer that came within earshot;then not bothering to actually check out other, more feasible,explanations for how,rather than why, we are here.You know, the ones with evidence and stuff!?
"Er...why are we here?......I know, God did it, now I don't have to hurt my brain understanding evolution."......Duh!
But, if there were no christians we wouldn't have these de-satanised versions of rock and pop music for us Kool kids to laugh at,but secretly like.

Tracklist:

A1 Our Front Porch 3:59
A2 Smiling At Rainstorms (Psalm 59) 2:57
A3 Bright New World 2:31
A4 Trust Me Now (Psalm 37) 4:39
A5 Reach Out To Jesus 3:08
B1 Dressing Up Jesus 4:01
B2 Memories 3:45
B3 We're Not Going To Make It Together 3:01
B4 The Flower Shoppe 3:55
B5 I've Got Confidence 3:00

DOWNLOAD to listen on your front porch HERE!