Yesterday's Street: Volume 2 (More Psych Dispatches from the 60's & 70's)

 

1)   You Wonder How These Things Begin • PETER WYNGARDE
Fermented dandy Mr. Wyngarde returns to host this second batch of psych dispatches from the past. To give you an idea of how truly groovy our MC was back in the sixties, SNL alum Mike Myers admitted to partially basing his Austin Powers persona on a character Wyngarde portrayed in the Brit espionage series Department S. OH BEHAVE!

You Wonder How These Things Begin

2)   Stop And Watch The Children Play • ROKES
Mention The Rokes, and you have probably killed a conversation. Even though it is Rokes guitarist Shel Shapiro who penned the sixties anthem “Let’s Live For Today”, they are as unknown as malodorous Taleggio outside of Italy. Not that they weren’t the hippest thing south of Milan (check out the YouTube clip of The Rokes performing "Take A Look").

Stop And Watch The Children Play

3)   Remember A Day • PINK FLOYD
Syd Barrett’s introverted and somewhat antisocial behavior reached new heights during the recording of Pink Floyd’s sophomore work Saucerful of Secrets. As he departed through various doors of perception, his participation became strictly limited throughout the chaotic sessions and various members had to step in with both writing and vocal assignments. “Remember” is undeniably true to Barrett’s form, winsome and mildly psychedelic, but was actually written by keyboardist Richard Wright, who also handles the vocals. This was the only single launched from the spacey LP, a single to be only released in the US. Watch them lip sync it here

Remember A Day

4)   You’ll Never Know (PSA)

You’ll Never Know

5)   True Story • TWICE AS MUCH
Another jangly, cotton candy, fizzy pop tab of orchestrated dreaminess recalling the blissful days of parasols and absinthe-infused refreshments.

True Story

6)   Armenia, City In The Sky • WHO
Tommy was not The Who’s first high concept album (literally and figuratively speaking). In 1967, Pete Townshend constructed an LP that paid homage to the psychotomimetic pirate radio stations broadcasting off the coast of Great Britain. The resulting vinyl, The Who Sell Out, was peppered with little radio jingles and “humorous” commercials, and in a rare occurrence, also featured a track (the one you have here) that was not written by a band member.

Having pissed off their manager, the Who spend the rest of the day taking publicity photos in front of toxic waste.

Armenia, City In The Sky

7)   Nehru Jackets At Paul Sargents (PROMO)
Paul Sargents was a hip clothing store in New York, located on West 4th Street… yes, as in “Positively Fourth Street”. Among other accomplishments, they provided the wardrobe for R&B group The Underground Railroad, though it seems to have done nothing to boost the sales of their obscure single “Harlem On My Mind”.

Nehru Jackets At Paul Sargents

8)   Who’s Putting Who On? • JAMESON
Jameson is Bobby Jameson, a talented musician born in Geneva, Illinois (!) who seemed to be on the verge of great fame at several points along his doomed career. He opened for the Beach Boys and Chubby Checker, was responsible for the one-gloved-hand look which was "borrowed" by The Music Machine, and recorded with The Stones and Frank Zappa. His undoing appears to have occurred right after recording the LP Color Him In - produced by ace produce Curt Boettcher.  With depression from a lack of chart success, a pile of LSD and excessive alcohol use,  the once talented musician ended up spending his subsequent years in hospitals.

Who’s Putting Who On?

09)   Children Kiss Your Mother Good Night • PISCES
We return again to the Land of Lincoln for this highly defective piece of nightmare juice by a completely unknown band from Rockford, Illinois. Bar band musicians Jim Krein and Paul DiVenti were reportedly turned on by Sergeant Pepper, and while enjoying one of these altered states, tuned in to a completely new stylistic trajectory. They approached a local clothier-turned-record label owner and cut a pile of tracks with vocalist-turned-felon Linda Bruner. Two or three locally released singles were issued, but the remainder were left shelved for decades.

Children Kiss Your Mother Good Night

10)   Mais La Vie Continuait • PUSSY CAT
Sassy feline Evelyne Courtois had been part of the French girl group Les Petites Souris before going solo in January of ‘66. The vast majority of her recorded morsels were cover songs, and her career as a frisky cover girl spanned through the end of the decade. One of the highlights in her grab bag of mini LPs was “Mais La Vie Coninuait”: more commonly recognized as “So Lonely”, the flip side for “Look Through Any Window” by The Hollies. Pussy Cat’s interpretation is not all that far off from the Hollies, but with the tempo picked up a bit, and the guitars brought to the front, it is preferable to the original... at least to me.Watch this cool kitty perform Ce N'est Pas Une Vie here! 

Mais La Vie Continuait

11)   Ha! Ha! Said The Clown • MANFRED MAN
The single was a minor hit in the UK, evidentially riding a wave of bubble gum psych that was spearheaded by Kesentez & Katz (Lemon Pipers, 1910 Fruitgum Co., etc). It is certainly a long way from the R & B they were peddling just two years earlier, and it is perhaps telling that the LP from which this sprang failed to chart in the UK. In the US, the album title was changed from Mighty Garvey to Might Quinn, with the title’s namesake added to the platter on our side of the Atlantic. Watch them perform it here!

Ha! Ha! Said The Clown

12)   Slightly-Delic • HOUSE OF NIMROD
Apparently some bad windowpane made its way to the small isles of New Zealand as the Summer of Love was waning, and in October of 1967, the earliest of victims committed their suffering to vinyl. The group’s premier single “Slightly-Delic/Reflections Of Our Time” was released on Festival Records (FNZ 2017) and became a minor hit in Aukland. Besides the ridiculous artist name, an additional problem hampering the band was that Bryce Petersen wasn’t thrilled with performing live and so sets were short and infrequent.

More like House of Nimrods

Slightly-Delic

13)   Walking Through The Streets Of My Mind • TIMEBOX
The same month “Slightly-Delic” was scaring parents in NZ, over in the UK, Timebox was releasing their R&B infused pop psych tablet “Walking”. This rather strong title was the flip for their cover version of Tim Hardin’s “Don’t Make Promises”, which had already been expertly covered by The Beau Brummels that same year.

Walking Through The Streets Of My Mind

14)   Telegram For Miss Marigold • ROKES
A wonderful dreamy tune that recalls a mysterious seance, or perhaps the experience of a tripping passenger waiting impatiently at a cavernous train station. Why their music, outside of “Live For Today”, was rarely, if ever, covered by other bands is completely beyond me.

Telegram For Miss Marigold

15)   Jenny Kissed Me • PETER WYNGARDE

Proudly displaying his winter nightgown designed by Sajid Khan.

Jenny Kissed Me

16)   Land of Sensations and Delights • JK & Co
Wunderkind Jay Kaye was only 15 when he formed JK & Co with some buddies and other like minded youngsters in ‘68. They were scooped up immediately by the Vancouver office of White Whale records (The Turtles label). The delicate and alluring simplicity of their tunes was definitely appealing, but fate would deal them a fatal blow when a stoner at their label decided to issue the intro track of their LP as the premier single. The intro track was a 36 second instrumental.

Land of Sensations and Delights

17)   Transparent Radiation • RED CRAYOLA
Listen to the mix of pop psych goodness and tasty futuristic avant futurism and you can see why Red Crayola has earned the revered reputation they enjoy to this day. Formed in 1966, their initial offering, The Parable of Arable Land (International Artists 1967), contained a cacophony of extemporaneous sounds that set them far apart from most everything that was released that same year.

Only one band member's check from International Artists cleared. Guess which one.

Transparent Radiation

18)   From The Underworld • THE HERD
Golden-locked, 70’s heartthrob Peter Frampton was far from a stranger to success when he wanted to know if "you feel like I do". He first dipped his 17 year old twinkle toes into the fickle waters of success with his involvement in The Herd. The band was an immediate success and struck Top 10 right off the bat with this pleasant pop orchestration in ‘67, and followed it up with two more successful singles in early ‘68. Eager to switch musical styles, Frampton quit and formed Humble Pie before the decade came to a close. Watch them perform it here!

From The Underworld

19)   Little Dreams • NEW WAVE
Alright. Yes, on the surface it may sound like my grandma snuck this in while I wasn’t looking. But open your ears, and listen to the somewhat dreamy lyrics and the way it so elegantly fits into the theme of this comp. If that doesn’t work, make yourself a nice chocolatey hot cocoa with a dash of Bailey’s and sit by the fire.

Little Dreams

20)   Policeman • CARAVAN
The colorful waves of ambient sound have washed us toward shores of a more progressive nature. Fret not, we are keeping a safe distance as the frontal boundaries of the two styles mingle and produce a magical hybrid that is equally captivating and chilling. Caravan was at home in the famed Middle Earth Club in London’s psychedelic underground scene. Would you be?

Pupils dilated, Caravan seems up for anything other than a picture.

Policeman

21)   Girl From Vernon Mountain • CHRIS LUCEY
Story goes Chris Ducey is hired by Surrey Records to cut some tracks for a proposed album. And before receiving any tapes or acetates, the label spends a bundle on printing the record jackets for the forthcoming record. In the meantime, Chris Ducey signs a contract with another label and leaves Surrey holding a bag of empty album covers. In walks Bobby Jameson, who is offered a unique deal… compose a bunch of songs to go with the track titles for this nonexistent LP and we will reward you handsomely. To avoid legalities with the real Ducey, the album jackets had the name Lucey slapped over Ducey. I want a vibraphone!

Girl From Vernon Mountain

22)   Leaving It All Behind • TOADS
Ace producer Gary Usher wrote, arranged and produced this moody, jangly bit of Dylan-esque rant. The flip side takes a similar approach and is co-written with Usher pal Raul Abeyta, a collaborator on several surf tunes from earlier that decade. Most likely a one-off studio project for Usher as nothing else seems to have been... well... left behind.

Leaving It All Behind

23)   All Strung Out On You Baby • NINO TEMPO & APRIL STEVENS
They were a kind of 60’s version of the Carpenters. Tempo & Stevens were a brother and sister act hailing from Niagara Falls. They are most remembered for winning the 1963 Grammy Award for “Deep Purple” (best rock-n-roll record!), a song later covered by Satan’s spawn Donny & Marie Osmond. They also cut the schmaltzy Love Story theme in 1973. In between, they recorded a Phil Spector-inspired platter of mild psych songs that blended Adult Contemporary with Purple Sunshine titled All Strung Out. Take a listen and count the stack-full of Spector references in both word and form. Watch them perform it here!

All Strung Out On You Baby

24)   Pay No Attention • PETER WYNGARDE
 

Pay No Attention

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