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!

Rod McKuen ‎– "Rod McKuen Takes A San Francisco Hippie Trip" (Tradition Everest ‎– 2063) 1968

This extremely fucked up copy of Pound-Shop Kerouac Rod's spoken word Psychsploitation trip to San Francisco,should just about manage to turn anyone 'off' rather than 'on'.Play this to the Grateful Dead,and they'd probably all join the army.Then some kind benefactor could have paid the special assassination squad of the Viet-Cong to shoot the fuckers in Cambodia.Like a reverse,dee-psychedelicised Apocalypse Now.....I'm on it.....got the first page of the script written already.Gerry Garcia is to be played by Charlie Sheen,but the special effects budget is so minuscule that i'm afraid the beheading scene is left to the last day of filming...and it ain't good news for Charlie....let's just say, he won't be surfing no more,but at least he died for his art rather than from AIDS.
Sounding as square as ever, Rod revives his beatnik character from his "Beatsville" album,on the look out for some 'Chicks' to get some free loving from,strictly no strings attached.(although someone reckoned that Rod was on the other team when it came to sexy-time?)....he was, a trained actor after all?
All this and he wrote "Blank Generation" for Richard Hell too....i'm not gonna let this go.I'm like a dog with a bone where Richard Hell's concerned.

Tracklist:

A1 I Dig Sausalito 1:26
A2 Kranko's Hippie Party 4:33
A3 Love Child's Lament 9:15
B1 Ode To "The Warm One" 1:30
B2 - Of Girls - 5:20
B3 - Of Me - 2:19
Grant Avenue Reflections 6:50
B4a This Boy -
B4b How Does It Feel?
B4c Just For Kicks
B4d Games
B4e Flying Home
B4f Talent?
B4g Confucious Say
B4h Here's To -

DOWNLOAD to get high with Rod 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!

Peter Cook & Dudley Moore ‎– "The L.S. Bumble Bee" (Decca ‎– F.12551) 1967

One thing one couldn't accuse Peter Cook and Dudley Moore of being, are stooges for the state's anti-subversive operations.
There were obvious aspects of Psychedelic culture that were easy targets, and the silly drug mythology was certainly one of them. I'm sure also that Cook and Moore were not aversed to indulging in these drugs themselves,at least when they weren't totally arseholed on the booze....which is certainly what did for Cook in the end.
These forgotten comedy legends do a perfect job here, walking the thin line between satire and propaganda. In fact a lot of the dumber members of the public were certain this was made by The Beatles in cognito, which it was intended to sound like,so this stupid assumption was not totally misunderstandable; actually its a lot better than most of the Fab Four's psychedelic output.
A lot of the same people also thought that The Residents were The Beatles too.....the same for 'Klaatu' also!!!!.....if anyone can think of anymore secret Beatles projects,feel free to inform us for ,we, the amusement, there of,would be grateful.

Tracklist:

A The L.S. Bumble Bee 2:45
B The Bee Side (Spoken Word) 4:44

DOWNLOAD the pure colourless liquid genius of Pete & Dud at their peak HERE!

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

DOWNLOAD yogi bare and poo-poo 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!

Ananda Shankar ‎– "Ananda Shankar" - (Reprise Records ‎– RS 6398) 1970

"His Name Is Ananda. He's a young man with a sitar and a dream and his name means peace and joy.
He's as Indian as the tradition in which he recieved his education as a classical musician.
But he's excited about Led Zeppelin and Janis Joplin and electronic music. " ....thats what it says in the liner notes anway.

This 'young man with a sitar and a dream' was the funky nephew to the more famous and far more boring Uncle Ravi,who spent most of his later years hanging with the Beatles and fathering scores of illegitimate children all over California.
At least Ananada is a 'proper' indian,and he can play the Sitar properly...if the wanted to;but the real dosh lay in doing naff versions of 'Light My Fire' rather than anything interesting.
I sold this album for 175 quid in the early noughties,before it got reissued on CD. Its Cheesy, its silly, but I do adore the final track rather a lot.Stuff that in yer pipe and smoke it Uncle Ravi. 

Tracklist:

A1 Jumpin' Jack Flash 3:40
A2 Snow Flower 3:10
A3 Light My Fire 3:29
A4 Mamata (Affection) 2:50
A5 Metamorphosis 6:49
B1 Sagar (The Ocean) 13:13
B2 Dance Indra 3:49
B3 Raghupati 3:35

DOWNLOAD the other shankar HERE!

Chim Kothari - "Sound Of Sitar" (Deram SML 1002) 1966

As always Deram got there first with the Sitar-sploitation angle,almost as soon as George Harrison had put his Sitar down after recording 'Michelle',out came "Sound Of Sitar"(Without the 'The's').
They conjured up an 'Indian' bloke called Chim Kothari......a made up name for a white bloke if ever there was one.Although it does sound like he's never actually seen a sitar before,Chim is not as appalling as Rajput and the Sepoy Mutiny.But i'm sad to say that 'Yes', you can indeed have too much Sitar.
I guess they couldn't fit the 'The's' into the title? Surely it should be "The Sound Of The Sitar"? Or maybe its was a clumsey attempt to infer an Indian accent? "Jolly Good and gawd blimey sir,album called 'Sound Of Sitar' mem saab", said that 'blacked up' bloke from 'It Ain't 'arf Hot Mum'....another banned seventies British Sit-Com....'Oh dear, how sad, never mind'(Windsor Davies RIP)

Tracklist:

Strangers In The Night
Winchester Cathedral
The Carnival Is Over
Barsaat ''Rain''
Eleanor Rigby
La Playa
Downtown
Guantanamera
You Don't Have To Say You Love Me
Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo
Bhigmangon Ka Mela - ''Beggars' Festival''
The Sound Of Music
Looking Through The Eyes Of Love
Cast Your Fate To The Wind

DOWNLOAD of sitar HERE!

Lord Sitar (Big Jim Sullivan) - "Sitar-a-gogo" & "Lord Sitar" (Mercury/Columbia) 1967/1968

Big Jim Sullivan's rock'n'roll credentials go back as long as British Rock's family tree existed. Big Jim's career started in 1959 after meeting Marty Wilde in the 3'i's coffee bar.
He's played on fifty nine number one UK hit singles, and his lengthy career included stints with Tom Jones and the James Last Orchestra.
Naturally, his Sitar technique was far superior to virtually anyone elses in the western world(yes even Bill Plummers!),although he still is no Ravi Shankar of course.
As Lord Sitar, he knocked out a couple of dozen easternized Psych-pop hits over the course of two cynical Psychsploitation albums.they obviously shifted some units because they made two albums of this stuff.
Before he died, he used to vist Tony 'Bass Player' Bell,who used to live nearby, here in France.He's the one who reckoned he played the bass on Johnny Kidd's "Shakin' All Over".....I checked this out by e-mailing Johnny Spence,the bass player in the Pirates...and he said he was talkin' bollocks.....read the full anecdote from earlier in the blog HERE!
Sadly I never got to meet Big Jim! Rest in peace you legend you.

"Sitar-a-Gogo" (1967):

1 She's Leaving Home 2:39
2 Sunshine Superman 3:29
3 A Whiter Shade Of Pale 2:49
4 LTTS 3:48
5 The Koan 3:08 (featuring John MacLaughlan)
6 Tallyman 2:36
7 The Sitar And The Rose 2:54
8 Translove Airways (Fat Angel) 2:09
9 Within You Without You 3:50
10 Flower Power 3:30

"Lord Sitar" (1968):

1 If I Were A Rich Man 5:40
2 Emerald City 2:50
3 Tomorrow's People 3:00
4 Daydream Believer 3:30
5 Like Nobody Else 4:30
6 I Am The Walrus 4:10
7 In A Dream 3:15
8 Eleanor Rigby 2:20
9 I Can See For Miles 2:45
10 Blue Jay Way 4:20
11 Black Is Black 2:50

DOWNLOAD and worship the lord HERE!

Rajput & The Sepoy Mutiny ‎– "Flower Power Sitar" (Design Records ‎– DLP-280) 1968

Nobody knows who Rajput was, nevermind who was in his backing band, The Sepoy Mutiny!? Probably a few session musicians enlisted on their morning off,or,more likely, the morning after a night on the booze.
One thing's for sure howvever. Raj couldn't play the Sitar very well,and almost certainly was not Indian.
There was a comedian (the late great Les Dawson) in the UK who had the great talent to play the piano just a half note out of tune.Rendering classical tunes as objects of mirth.
Rajput has the same talent with the Sitar,transforming ten harmless pop tunes into ten reasons for the end of music.
Blatantly aimed at the budget end of the Psychedelic revolution,this qualifies as unashamedly exploitative.George Harrison this is not,and the poor kids who bought it expecting such like would have been disappointed that it was not up to the admitedly low standards of 'the Quiet one' himself.
In hindsight, we can forgive the 'cash-in' morals of the original motives for creating this appaling trash;but it has left us 21st century cynics with one of the true treasures from the 60's.Basically, its fucking hilarious.

Tracklist:

A1 Flower Power
A2 Flower Bed
A3 I String Beads
A4 Do It With Flowers
A5 Lullaby For Flower Children
B1 Up, Up & Away
B2 Beautiful, Beautiful Flower
B3 Flowers, Flowers Everywhere
B4 Ragadelic
B5 Child Of Love

DOWNLOAD the dead flowers of psychsploitation 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!

Martin Denny ‎– "A Taste Of India" (Liberty ‎– LST-7550) 1968

I mentioned Martin Denny in the Emil Richards 'Journey To Bliss' post,so, here's Martins short foray into Psychsploitation under the guise of Exotica discovers a Taste of India.
I first discovered Martin Denny thanks to Throbbing Gristles obsession with the recorded works and style of the master of Exotica. His steamy tropical fusion of western easy listening with a stylised polyneasian feel,characterised by the cover photo's of sultry models of indeterminate ethnicity invariably peeking through a bamboo screen.Performing soft arrangements of popular songs with an odd instrument or two from Hawaii or places in Asia and the South Pacific such as conch shells, Indonesian and Burmese gongs, Japanese kotos, boobams and even the local forest animals and so in serendipity blended ingredients of Easy Listening, Jungle Noise, Smooth Jazz, Polynesian "Tiki" instrumentation, that would become Mr. Denny's musical signature sound: Exotica.
His version of The Strawberry Alarm Clock's "Incence and Peppermints" actually makes this pretty inoffensive pop tune just a tad weirder.You could now imagine a drug crazed serial killer chopping up a body and packing it into a suitcase with this playing in the background.Probably the attraction that Genesis P. Orridge found in this strange blend, he being also obsessed with Killers like the oft-mentioned Chuck Manson. The Moors Murderers in particular were especially fond of Ray Conniff, as they played his version of "The Little Drummer Boy" when they tortured Leslie Anne Downey.This is music for Psychopaths who couldn't be bothered to travel anywhere.
"Why do I need to see the Taj Mahal when I've got the music?"
Its the cheap alternative to flying,and far more greener.
Tourism is destroying the things the tourists want to go and see.At least with a Martin Denny album you get to imagine the Pyramids or Machu picchu without dropping your water bottles and eroding these places of enormous cultural importance,and keep your carbon footprint firmly in the managable zone......but then again, Who Cares!!? We're at the tipping point and its TOO LATE TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT!!!

ps...BUT you can still help and save the Pangolin before we're extinct...click here!

Tracklist:

A1 Indrani
A2 Amy's Theme
A3 It Must Be Him
A4 Hypnotique
A5 A World Of Whispers
A6 Incense And Peppermints
B1 Yellow Bird
B2 Tara's Theme
B3 Live For Life
B4 Meditation (Meditacáo)
B5 Our Summer Love
B6 A Touch Of India (Pearl Of The Sea)

DOWNLOAD a tasty Indian HERE!

Emil Richards & The Microtonal Blues Band ‎– "Journey To Bliss" (Impulse! ‎– AS-9166) 1968

Hey, dig those crazy vibes man.This kat is so hot he's smokin'!!!......smokin' a joint laced with LSD more like. 
Even journeymen Jazzers pushing forty 'Turned on' in 1968.
Another of Bill Plummers mates, and collector of percussion instruments, Emil Richards, Harry Partch style, explored the microtonal spaces between the notes,and had a pletora of modified and home made percussion tools.
Side two of this album has a 'meditation suite' in six parts, to help the hippies find bliss amongst the josticks,or more likely help some Batchelor Pad music enthusiast,who is now married and working in a bank achieve nirvana,then file this away next to his Martin Denny collection.....never to be played again.
Emil narrates us through the more difficult parts, rather like one of those self-hypnosis records we've all sampled for our dark ambient projects.
As Psychsploitation goes, this is actually one of the better attempts,even though it verges on the Exotica blended with popular psychiatry.

Tracklist:

A1 Maharimba 2:52
A2 Bliss 4:57
A3 Mantra 4:29
A4 Enjoy, Enjoy 5:51
B1 Journey To Bliss - Part I 3:08
B2 Journey To Bliss - Part II 4:10
B3 Journey To Bliss - Part III 2:52
B4 Journey To Bliss - Part IV 3:10
B5 Journey To Bliss - Parts V & VI 5:18

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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

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Gabor Szabo ‎– "Jazz Raga" (Impulse! ‎– AS-9128) 1966

Gabor Szabo, either escaped the Soviet invasion of 1956, or the communists threw him out for crimes against music?
Somehow he found his way to California,found Bob Thiele who signed him to Impulse records, and released around half a dozen Szabo albums in a couple of years......someone must have bought them,but I dunno who? He did in fact beat the other besuited Sitar exponent on the block,Mr Bill Plummer, to the punch by a year or so.Being a political refugee does tend to focus the mind somewhat,spotting potential new ways to integrate and avoid being sent back.Although this album should have been reason enough to reject his application for US Citizenship alone.
Only in 1966 could an balding asylum seeker from behind the Iron Curtain be seen whizzing around LA on a Vespa with a sitar strapped to the back of his tweed blazer, with an adoring,heavily made up Modette in tow. On top of this, someone was cool,or fool, enough to have him banging out albums.
Just slapping any image portraying Indian Instrumentation was enough to shift enough units to finance another record in 1966-68, so fittingly there is a capitalist motive at work here.
The Sitar, is most definitely NOT an instrument one can just pick up and play at a whim.In the hands of Gabor it sounds like a badly tuned guitar with buzzing frets,and regularly snapping strings.
When he overdubs his semi-acoustic guitar part with the Sitar, it really does just sound like he's snapping the strings.
The cover versions are shameless Psychsploitation at its worst and naffest.Despite being abley backed up by the legendary Bernard Purdie on the skins,just Gabors heavily Hungarian accented vocals are enough to cause ones jaw to drop in disbelief.I suppose the Jazz labels had to do this shit to survive the Rock'n'Roll fad,and thank goodness they did.They really are quite hilarious indeed.

Tracklist:

A1 Walking On Nails 2:46
A2 Mizrab 3:32
A3 Search For Nirvana 2:07
A4 Krishna 3:11
A5 Raga Doll 3:42
A6 Comin' Back 1:55
B1 Paint It Black 4:40
B2 Sophisticated Wheels 3:52
B3 Ravi 2:59
B4 Caravan 2:58
B5 Summertime 2:58

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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

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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!