ALL WE NEED IS POP: 04/03/17

Monday, 3 April 2017

Excellent Psychedelic Pop of the sixties : Giant Crab - A Giant Crab Come Forth 1968 (2005 Estrella Rockera) Flac

A Giant Crab Comes Forth is the debut album of the band The Giant Crab. It was released in 1968 by MCA's Universal City Records (UNI). Giant Crab evolved from Ernie and the Emperors, a popular local band out of Santa Barbara, California.Giant Crab was formed around three Orosco brothers, Ernie, Raymond, and Ruben, all originally from the group Ernie & The Emporers. They added the stylings of brothers Dennis and Kenny Fricia to complete their line-up for their debut album. It also included a title track narrative by radio DJ, Johnny Fairchild.
The album leads off with an unusual tone, a title track narrated in the style of a news report by Johnny Fairchild. Fairchild was a local DJ from the Santa Barbara, California radio station, Radio K.I.S.T. He is given credit for the band's first radio air play. Fairchild's narration in the title track encompasses the titles of all the tracks in the album to follow. The words from the title track are written on the back cover of the original LP, in the style of a track listing. They are as follows:

"News has it that a giant crab has come forth out of the sea of music and is catching on and spreading across the land. Through struggles and hardships, ups and downs, trials and tribulations, a tiny amoeba, fighting for existence has grown into a giant crab. It started with a little kiss, of enthusiasm and the directions of the giant crab at this point are unknown. But they could pop up at any minute in you home. So watch your step for this musical giant is out to intensify your soul. The giant crab's only hope is that you will enjoy it enough to become involved in a hot line conversation that will spread :across the land. If you or I enjoy being the boy or girl it is our duty to inform Lydia Purple and the rest of the world...Flash...It has just been reported that :the giant crab is about to invade Groovy Towne inland, coming thru the fields. The chance you take is yours alone. Can you get out of the magic grasp of the giant crab? Believe it or not, The answer is no. For once you have felt the golden touch of the giant crab you will be shouting hi ho silver lining along with thousands of other helpless people caught up in their grasp. Why am I so proud? Listen and you will :see...Listen...Listen...Listen...Listen..."

The album consists of 11 original tracks, written primarily by Ernie Orosco, and four cover songs. Their take on Joey Levine's "I Enjoy Being The Boy" is the band's version of "I Enjoy Being A Boy", a song popularized by The Banana Splits on their TV show. Their version of "Lydia Purple", a cover of The Collectors (band) (from their self-titled debut, The Collectors (album)) is one of three versions of the song that were released by different bands that year, and it is arguably Giant Crab's most complicated arrangement on the album. The band chose "Hi Ho Silver Lining" as a single, likely because a version of the song was already a hit in the U.K. for The Jeff Beck Group (wikipedia)

This is a great psychedelic pop album and it's great from the beginning to the end. This is the 17 track release by Estrella Rockera from 2005. The last song E.S.P. is the ''not so strong one'' (no weak songs here) and is the bonus track on the estrella release. You will enjoy this band...
Viel Spass wünscht
Frank Flac1 You need both links! Flac2

p.s.: No original artwork sorry...:-(

Jericho (with Danny McDonald) - Retrospective 1995-1998 (2003 Popboomerang Rec)

It seems that these days you just can’t get rid of Danny McDonald… thankfully!
His catchy hooks are all over the scene, be it the power-pop soundtrack to an endless summer of his band P76 or his own solo stuff, the glammy garage sounds of The Stoneage Hearts and now Jericho, that actually takes us back to his earliest days when it all began.
Of course, had this been the first one that I heard of his works, I’d be much more thrilled, now that I know that he can do even better, I can only enjoy the development of the pop-master-in-the-making.
Still, there’s a coupla stand-outs that will make me get back to this collection every once in a while like the usual “big starry-eyed” power-chords of Coming Down, Talking To Myself or Tell Me Something I Don’t Know (well, they did name one of their EPs Radio City did they?!), the infectious guitar riff of Everybody’s Fool.

Or the jangly “flight” of the teenage-byrds in Don’t Know What Comes Over Me and it wouldn’t come as much of a surprise learning that he was saving Washed Out for the rainy days, so that he can “survive” by offering it to the Gallaghers, for their “come back single”.
Anyway, this is another “pop boomerang” that will keep coming back no matter how hard you try to throw it away.
[Released by Pop Boomerang 2003]

I am a big fan of Power Pop made in Australia. This is Danny McDonald with Jericho from 1995 till 1998. McDonald is one of the great pop musicians of Australia. He had played and worked with all the big names in pop and rock business in Australia. And this Retrospective is real great. Catchy Power Pop as hell and highly recommended. What more can i say... enjoy it.

Cheers
Frank mp3@320

The Standells ‎– The Hot Ones / Try It ('67, '67) Big Beat 1993 Flac

One good thing about '60s garage punk music is that when it is done right, it's so fast that you plunge right through it -- in that sense, it's a lot like rockabilly music; and with brevity like that, if a band is any good, there's only so much that even the occasional clinker can mar the listening experience. The two Standells albums represented here total out at barely an hour of listening time for 20 tracks, and nothing lingers, and as it happens, the Standells were generally really good at what they did.

In this instance, on The Hot Ones they're applying their energetic and crunchy brand of music-making to songs that can take it (even if, in the case of, say, "Wild Thing," they hardly need it). The music off The Hot Ones holds up a bit better than that from Try It, though their soul-based efforts on the latter don't seem that bad today, especially surrounded as they are by some pretty good psychedelic punk material -- it might not have been what the group was about, or even what they were terribly good at, but you've probably heard lots worse from bands out of this period, and they sound like they're really trying. The good sound on this CD helps, of course, and the presence of "Riot on Sunset Strip" and the title track carry the rest, which -- except for "St. James Infirmary," which should have been abandoned -- doesn't really need that much help.

Here is another double disc set from the Standells, heroes of mine in psychedelic garage.
Hope you will have fun , too
hip, hip, hurrah
Frank flac 1 You need both links! flac 2

Pete Dello - Into your Ears... plus 1971 (1989 See For Miles Records)

The '60s spawned so many psychedelic bands that the reissue has become its own genre. Audiophiles flock to conventions worldwide to pay exorbitant amounts of money for obscurities that your average music fan would recoil at. This passion has unearthed horrible artifacts, intriguing oddities, and the occasional gem. After tasting success in 1968 with the single "I Can't Let Maggie Go," Honeybus founder Pete Dello left the band after only one album to pursue a more settled lifestyle. His distaste for the rigors of touring left him with a surplus of un-recorded material that would eventually steer him back into the studio to record his first and only solo record. Into Your Ears features 14 songs, each under three-and-a-half minutes long, that prosper through a winning combination of goofy psychedelia and Beatlesque beauty. The sweet melodies and gentle harmonies of "It's What You've Got" and "Taking The Heart Out Of Love" are timeless, devoid of irony, and begging for placement in a Wes Anderson film. "Do I Still Figure In Your Life," which has since been covered by the likes of Joe Cocker, conveys the same irresistible form of melancholy that permeates a great Randy Newman or Harry Nilsson recording, and more than makes up for the wince-inducing "Uptight Basil" and "Harry The Earwig (the latter inspired the horrific Roger Dean cover art). Dello's voice is sweet and clear, with only a tinge of the British folk throatiness that ruled the era. The songs, while never complex, benefit from strategically placed string arrangements that rarely disappoint, and crisp production as exemplified on the set closer "Arise Sir Henry." Also included are the Magic Valley versions of "Taking The Heart Out Of Love" and "Uptight Basil," which differ only in sound quality (poorer) from the album renditions, and provide collector's with the definitive edition of this highly sought after (almost) masterpiece.(allmusic.com)).

Beautiful record!
Frank Flac 1 You need both links Flac 2

At Request: The Wondermints - Wonderful World of the Wondermints 1996 mp3

Technically, this second album from the Wondermints isn't their wonderful world at all, since it consists entirely of cover songs. Figuratively, however, this is exactly the world that gave birth to and nourished the band, the great pop records of the 1960s and 1970s from which they learned their chops, and a legacy the band had not only absorbed but also taken into the future and elevated to new heights on their debut album. At the same time, although an enjoyable exercise, it is not really the artistic statement that the band had envisioned recording for their second album. It was recorded on the insistence of their Japanese label Toy's Factory. Regardless of its genesis, though, it is undoubtedly a stellar and revealing effort, a valuable window into the building blocks that created the band. The Wondermints were no strangers to covers prior to this album. The final ("white") of four fabled early demo tapes that circulated around Los Angeles in the first couple years of their existence included covers of Pilot, ELO, Badfinger, and Elvis Costello, among others. They had also contributed tracks to the acclaimed Hollies tribute album, Sing Hollies in Reverse, and a Henry Mancini tribute, as well. With Wonderful World they turned a different and more intriguing trick by pulling together a gaggle of mostly more obscure or forgotten tracks from the era and shaping them into a singular, impeccable statement. The tunes cut a wide swath from Paul Revere & the Raiders to Bacharach/David to British mods Smoke to '70s teenybopper idols the Hudson Brothers and their own "Tracy Hide," but a couple of the revisions stand out. Goffin & King's "Porpoise Song" originally appeared in the Monkees' psychedelic flick Head, but it is transformed by the Wondermints, more suited to their airy psychedelia than the tongue-in-cheeky pre-Fab Four. Their version of Glen Campbell's "Guess I'm Dumb," a Brian Wilson composition recorded to inaugurate Campbell's solo career, bolsters production and background harmonies and features a gorgeously pensive, honey-coated vocal from Darian Sahanaja. Even better, they transform "Love in the City" from a Turtles song to one that Arthur Lee and Love might have gladly sneaked onto Da Capo by quickening the pace slightly and bathing it with a kaleidoscopic edge -- a mix of punky attitude, insistent bass pulse, and a vaguely paranoid vibe with elegant strings and graceful horn charts. It is the best thing on the album, but, in truth, they better virtually every song, with the exceptions of the indomitable Five Stairsteps classic "Ooh Child," Pink Floyd's brilliant "Arnold Layne," and ABBA's "Knowing Me, Knowing You," which is really apples-and-oranges anyway. That isn't to depreciate any of the original artists, but instead says volumes about the brilliance of the Wondermints, not only their interpretive powers but also the resonance of their artistry. In a way, although it is an oblique step sideways rather than forward from their original work, Wonderful World goes further towards defining what is special about the band than their previous album had. What could have been a loose run-through or soundcheck for the "real" work turns into an album that is not only wholly enjoyable, but also stands on its own quite admirably. The music is not a pastiche of past influences; it is a refining of and advancement on them. Enjoy it!

Frank mp3@320