Yesterday's Street volume 1: Pop Psych Antiquities

1)   Yesterday’s Street • BO GRUMPUS
Mistakenly grouped with the Bosstown Sound, Bo Grumpus was actually a product of the Big Apple, not Beantown. True, the nucleus of the band, Eddie Mottau and Joe Hutchinson, were native Bostonians, but it was not until relocating to New York City and bringing onboard Felix Pappalardi that the group found their sound. As for the origins of their odd moniker, Bo Grumpus was the name of a piece of artwork hanging in Pappalardi’s living room. After relocating to the Bell Records label, they dropped their name in favor of the equally enigmatic Jolliver Arkansaw.

Yesterday’s Street

2)   Come In • PETER WYNGARDE
Peter Wyngarde was a well established actor in England during the 60’s, having starred in many films, including a personal favorite Night of the Eagle. Maybe it was the Top 40 trajectory of actor Richard Harris ("MacArthur Park") that convinced RCA to approach Peter Wyngarde, who himself admitted to having minimal vocal talents. Fortunately for us, RCA would have none of his humility and proceeded with one of the weirdest narrative albums committed to vinyl.  Released as When Sex Leers Its Inquisitive Head, the recording included a booty full of jaw-dropping tracks including “Rape” (a bouncy discussion about cultural definitions of the vile act) and “Hippy & The Skin Head” (a fable about a homosexual skin head who comes out of the closet).  

It was rumored the album was pulled within a few weeks of release, but this appears untrue. Per Wyngarde: “It sold out in next to no time. But RCA point-blankly refused to press any more. I was fuming, as I’d been given a three-album contract with the company, who promised to release one LP every 12 months. The excuse was that production was being moved from Middlesex, I think, to Hollywood in Gloucestershire. They told me that everything would have to go on the back burner, but I just believe that they got cold feet”.

Do I make you randy?

Come In

Watch Jason King Here!




3)   In My Box • FAIRFIELD PARLOUR
Sounds like Kaleidoscope UK, doesn’t it? Well, it is. As the new decade approached, the talented band were displeased with a lack of success and thought a fresh approach would resuscitate their fortunes. Clearly, the music industry was changing; Woodstock pointed at a more “progressive” direction, and the band did not want to be labeled a relic. So, they opted for a new name and released a flurry of press releases heralding a sound that was more in keeping with the times. Strangely, though, the resulting LP From Home to Home sounded exactly like a Kaleidoscope recording (and that's not a bad thing!), with a slimmer portion of full orchestrated psychedelia. One more concept album followed, a double LP that remained on the shelf until the 1990’s.

In My Box

4)   She Was Born To Be My Unicorn • TYRANNOSAURUS REX
Marc Bolan was a bit of a musical chameleon at the outset. His first endeavors with John’s Children were cemented in basement psych, and of course some years later he would be the belle of the ball in the glam movement. In between, there was this interesting dalliance with prog psych which featured Marc Bolan and Steve Took: the original nucleus of Tyrannosaurus Rex (note, this is pre-T Rex). References to Lord of The Rings riddled the first A & M records releases along with Celtic song styles and fable poetics. They slowly gravitated toward a more engaing glam sound, losing Took along the way. Unicorn was their third LP and lays the groundwork for the more familiar T Rex.

They quickly realized picnics are far more successful when you bring a basket of food.

She Was Born To Be My Unicorn

Marc Bolan shills for Ford Mustang!



5)   Ha! Ha! Said The Clown • MANFRED MANN
The band famous for “The Mighty Quinn” (ugh) began as a Chess Records-style rhythm and blues outfit, but eventually expanded into the pop and psych fields by the later 60’s. They scored an unbelievable number of hits in the UK, most notable for being cover tunes of other band’s works. In 1968, they released Mighty Garvey, which contained both “Hair Turns Gray” and the pop psych single “Ha Ha Said The Clown.” The album was not well received by critics, due in part to the pop-ish velour.

Imagine the children's party hosting these fun loving entertainers!

Ha Ha Said The Clown

6)   Wild Flowers • HOLY MACKERAL
Holy Mackeral featured the diminutive Paul Williams, known for his schmaltzy 70’s pop which became impossible to escape by mid-decade (“Rainy Days and Mondays” and “We’ve Only Just Begun”). The group also featured members of Elvis Presley’s backup band, as well as original Jefferson Airplane bassist Bob Harvey. After a couple of albums worth of innocuous pop, folk, country and psych tracks, the band was floating at the top of the musical tank and disband.

Wild Flowers

7)   Atta Boy Mike (Excerpt from HEAD)

Atta Boy Mike (Excerpt from HEAD)

8)   Chinese Girl • BILLY J KRAMER & THE DAKOTAS
It’s hard to say what the most offensive aspect of this record is. The overt racism? The obnoxious attempts at rhyming (“You all listen to my story, take a trip in her rickshawry”)? The sophomoric sexuality? And yet, I can’t help but find the whole anachronistic affair to be embarrassingly enjoyable. This was from the"Town of Tuxler Toymaker" single in 1967 single, the last one to feature "& The Dakotas".

Chinese Girl

9)   Time Is Right • TWICE AS MUCH
They were the back-up on Vashti Bunyan’s infectious ballad “Coldest Night of The Year”, and put out a slew of highly orchestrated pop psych ditties of their own on Andrew Oldham’s Immediate Records label between 1966 and 1968. David Skinner (1/2 of Twice as Much) went on to join Roxy Music in 1979.

Time Is Right

10)   Shame • DAVE DEE, DOZY, BEAKY, MITCH & TICH 
Imagine if Polyphonic Spree opted to use everyone's nicknames to identify the band. Just sayin'. Managed by the same writers responsible for million sellers by the Honeycombs, Lulu, and The Herd, David John Harman (Dave Dee), Trevor Leonard Ward-Davies (Dozy), John Dymond (Beaky), Michael Wilson (Mick) and Ian Frederick Stephen Amey (Tich) were provided a huge string of Blaikley & Howard works that catapulted them to the top of the pops. Almost completely unknown here in the US, they released nine LP’s in their homeland of merry ole England between 1966 and 1969. This track is from If Music Be The Food Of Love, Prepare For Indigestion. No, seriously!

When finances got tight, the band could always be found hiding from their landlord under the fire escape

Shame

11) Nevertheless • ECLECTION
After hearing this, I was surprised to find they were not part of the West Coast sunshine brigade, but in fact an import from the UK. Add that they were on the predominantly American roster of Elektra Records, and you can understand the inference. Their first female lead had been described as having a voice that cut through one’s head like a knife. The cover to their sole, self-titled 1968 album is one of my favorites of all time: demonstrably misleading and suggestively satanic.

Nevertheless

12) Widdecombe Fair • PETER WYNGARDE
So RCA snagged Peter, but they weren't the first label to approach the actor. In summer '68, Alan Keen Music took a shine to Wyngarde and cut a 7" single called "Where, Why Did You Go?". Somehow things fell through, as the recording remains in the can to this day.

Widdecombe Fair

13) Stop • GIORGIO
Giorgio is none other than Italian-born Giorgio Moroder, the production god responsible for, among other things, Donna Summer’s seventeen minute epic “Love to Love You Baby” as well as her later smash “I Feel Love”. Moroder was so prolific, that he and his collaborator at the time were churning out an album every six months - a rate not seen since Holland Dozier & Holland ceased writing for Motown. In the late 60’s, Moroder was all over the map musically, at one point doing an entire album of American bubblegum covers.

Stop

14) Karma Sitar • 101 STRINGS ORCHESTRA
In the late 60’s and early 70’s, if your grandparents owned a turntable, they also possessed at least one easy listening album from the faceless 101 Strings Orchestra. From 1957 to 1981, this generic outfit released over 150 albums with sales over $50,000,000. Basically the shtick was to cover whatever was hot at the time... mood music, musicals, pop songs, space music, electronic music... and turn them into easy listening versions. So of course in the Summer of Love, they were compelled to release Sounds of Today, the LP that contained this rather fun schmaltz.  Wonder what grandma made of this after she picked it up at Woolworths?

Karma Sitar

15)   Nothing’s Boy • HP LOVECRAFT
They were from Chicago and big fans of the horror/sci-fi author from whom they adopted their name. This was written and narrated by Ken Nordine, who was featured on the last post: Refracted Candy Rainbow.

Nothing’s Boy

16)   Folder Man • PLEASE
If you replaced their Hammond organ with a harpsichord, this band would be interchangeable with the Lemon Pipers. Peter Dunton's voice possesses an uncanny similarity to Piper’s lead Ivan Brown, and the style is a dead ringer too. They hailed from England and shared members at various times with the more prog-oriented Gun (Dunton and guitarist Adrian Gurvitz). Please never released a single track during their existence.

Dunton - Mastering the fine art of "mingling"

Folder Man

17)   I Feel Like Going Out • PETER & GORDON
Released in 1968, Peter & Gordon’s Hot Cold & Custard LP had the big, brassy, slightly psych feel (dig that backwards percussion on "I Feel Like Going Out"!) of many Top 40 contemporaries in Great Britain, and that was part of the problem. There was a transparency in their new found hipness, and the insincerity of the attempt seeped through for the former Mersyebeat duo. This was their final release, containing a couple standouts which included “You’ve Had Better Times” as well as what you are listening to here.

Apparently it's "last call" on this sinking ship.

I Feel Like Going Out

18)   Monday-Tuesday • BIT ‘A’ SWEET
My the door that Winchester Cathedral opened up! The Monkees had their moment with "Magnolia Simms", and here we have the Bit 'A" Sweet angle. They left behind one highly regarded pop psych LP on the ABC label in 1968. Many of the songs were written by Cowsills producer Artie Kornfeld. The band was a force to be reckoned with in New York City, and their raucous single “Out of Sight, Out of Mind,” is considered a Nugget’s style classic. As with so many during this pivotal time however, they got lost in the shuffle.

Monday-Tuesday

19)   I Can See The Wind • BOBBY DARIN
Gotta give Darin credit... while many crooners of the early 60’s took their cynical stabs at rock and psych in the late 60’s, the man behind “Mack the Knife” was completely sincere with his endeavor. Darin wrote, produced, arranged and designed (!) the album after spending months in isolation. Darin, a Robert Kennedy supporter, was reportedly crushed by the assassination of the presidential candidate, and like many at the time, was personally moved by the challenges of the decade's climax. Most of the songs from the album Bobby Darin Born Walden Robert Cassotto were written during long periods of reflection at Big Sur.

I Can See The Wind

20)   Isn’t It Strange • SPARROW
Sparrow was Jack London’s back-up band in the mid 60’s. The Canadian group was eventually joined by John Kay, just prior to him organizing Steppenwolf (“Born to Be Wild”/ “Magic Carpet”). You might guess Kay’s involvement is what was responsible for the tripped out style evidenced in songs such as “Isn’t It Strange.” Actually the Doors-like psych offerings on the group’s album came from original band members, while Kay’s contributions were reportedly standard blues covers a la John Lee Hooker.

Isn’t It Strange

21)   Don’t Let Your Chance Go By • DAVID MCNEIL
French musician/poet David McNeil (son of artist Marc Chagall) began his career early on with this 1968 release on President Records. A few years later, he gained greater popularity with his 1972 single “Hollywood”, a moving acoustical folk number performed in his native tongue.

Don’t Let Your Chance Go By

22) Take A Giant Step • FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH
These crazy kids from Texas started out as The Crossfiles and recorded a garage single on Tower Records in 1967.  They then split town and headed to LA where they ended up label mates with The Monkees. Like The Monkees, the Frederickburg boys chose the very same Goffin-King tune as the B-Side for their premier single. In this case, the catchy “Don’t Blame Me” (The Monkees A-Side being “Last Train To Clarksville”). Released in 1968. Area 251 records released a CD collecting their tunes. Order it here

Take A Giant Step

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