John Stewart - California Bloodlines/Willard minus2 '69 & '70 (1989 Bear Family Records) Flac & mp3

Biography:
John Stewart first gained recognition as a songwriter when his songs were recorded by the Kingston Trio. In 1960, he formed the Cumberland Three, which recorded three albums for Roulette. The following year, he joined the Kingston Trio, replacing Dave Guard, and stayed with them until 1967. His song "Daydream Believer" was a number one hit for the Monkees at the end of that year. Stewart traveled with Senator Robert Kennedy on his 1968 presidential campaign, an experience that affected him deeply. In 1969, he released his classic album California Bloodlines, the first of seven solo albums to reach the charts through 1980.

Stewart found his biggest commercial success with the Top Ten album Bombs Away Dream Babies and its single "Gold" in 1979. He released several of his albums and albums by others on his own Homecoming label starting in the 1980s. Airdream Believer appeared on Shanachie in 1995, followed by The American Folk Song Anthology on Delta in 1996. Rough Sketches and the live Bandera were released in 1997 and 1998, respectively, by Folk Era. Stewart signed with Appleseed Recordings in 2000, and his next three albums, Wires from the Bunker (2000), Havana (2003), and The Day the River Sang (2006), all appeared on the Appleseed imprint. Following Stewart's death on January 19, 2008, in San Diego, CA, Folk Era released a previously unheard live set (recorded at the Celebrity Theatre in Phoenix, AZ, on November 30, 1973) as Bite My Foot in 2009.(allmusic)

Some of you may wonder to see a country album here. Myself is surprised :-) and what i can't believe is how it happened that i never heard of this great guy.
Surely i am not really in country music but this sounds great to me. I can't believe this recordings are from the end of the sixties. A lot of the songs sound in my ears as recorded yesterday. My favourites here are the songs from California Bloodlines and some of the Willard works, too. Earth Rider is a killer song and maybe my favourite from Willard.

Enjoy
         Frank                  Flac part 1  &  Flac part 2  &  Flac part 3         mp3@320

Australia '60s Pop: The Easybeats - The Shame Just Drained 1965-68 (1993 Rhino) Flac & mp@320

For a group that really only scored one major international hit, the Easybeats' songwriting team -- Harry Vanda and George Young -- were very busy bees indeed in the studio in the late '60s. All but one of the songs on this 15-track compilation are taken from sessions between late 1966 and late 1968 that were unreleased at the time; five come from an album that was canned at the last minute. Apparently there were about 20 more outtakes where that came from.

Don't pay any mind to the ridiculous claim in the sleeve note that "had all the material been released in the sequence (and quantity) it was created, then the Easybeats' impact might have been far more notable and we might today be comparing their albums alongside Rubber Soul, Aftermath, and other rock milestones." This is cheery late-'60s pop with mild psychedelic influences, echoing the Small Faces, the Turtles, and especially the Kinks. The cheeriness, in fact, verges on childish and sickly sweet in places. It's not bad.

In fact, it's occasionally pretty good; it's just not incredibly significant. By far the best track is "Mr. Riley of Higginbottom & Clive," a bit of dry class satire that compares well with Ray Davies' vignettes from the same era.(Richie Unterberger, allmusic)

I am a big Easybeats addict and whatever whoever wherever say is to me as interesting as a bag of rice falls down in china :-).

Have fun
               Frank                       Flac part 1  &  Flac part 2          -  mp3@320

Sixties Garage: The Bachs - Out Of The Bachs 1968 (2004 Gear Fab Records) Flac

Hello Folks, yesterday i saw on the fine ''Cun Cun Revival/Surfing The Odyssey'' blog this album by The Bachs and you can take it there in mp3 format. What i really liked in that post was the words of Zen Archer about his history with the album. I post it here just in Flac because you can jump over to ''Surfing The Odyssey'' if you like it in mp3.

Only 150 copies of Out of the Bachs -- dig the nifty pun -- were released back in 1968. Rarity alone, tends to send aficionados of garage rock one-offs into paroxysms of aggrandizement, and, indeed, that has been the case with Bachs. The band's sole record, cut in a single day as its swan song and farewell, has been classed by some genre fans as one of the greatest garage platters of the '60s, a veritable lost classic. Collectors consequently have doled out as many as thousands of dollars for a mint copy of the LP. So credit where due to reissue label Gear Fab for making this fabled artifact available and accessible to those of us with, shall we say, shallower pockets.

But its status as a Holy Grail of garage, alas, also begs the question: Does the music itself merit the hype? In a word, occasionally. Out of the Bachs is certainly not in the first tier of '60s rock obscurities, and probably not in the second. It is too crudely recorded, and ultimately too artistically inconsistent. There are too many dreary, lovey-dovey moments, too many songs that never rise above the unexceptional. But when the combo was on -- and Bachs hit on all cylinders for nearly half the album -- the music was explosive. There is only one song here that truly exists outside the box: the extraordinary "Tables of Grass Fields." A cosmic ballad, beautiful even as filtered through the muddy atmospherics, and punctuated by an acid-drenched exclamation point in the form of the song's haunting, out-of-nowhere coda, it is a fantastically disjointed collision of the inspiring and the unorthodox, and belongs alongside the very finest psychedelic nuggets of the era.

And there are enough other strong performances (generally the more "far out" ones, as the kids used to say), all of them penned in-house by vocalist-bassist Blake "Black" Allison and guitarist John Peterman, on the rest of the album -- try "Free Fall," the rave-up "Minister to a Mind Diseased," "Show Me That You Want to Go Home," or "I'm a Little Boy" -- to confirm that Out of the Bachs, if not a masterpiece, definitely has the goods.(allmusic.com)

Enjoy it
             Frank            Flac part 1   &   Flac part 2

Power Pop - The Rembrandts - Greatest Hits (2006 Rhino Records) Flac & mp3@320

The Rembrandts' Danny Wilde and Phil Solem may have provided the world with one of the most excruciatingly catchy theme songs in the history of television ("I'll Be There for You"), but the Los Angeles-based duo were capable of writing some top-notch adult alternative/jangle pop as well. This excellent overview from Rhino features 20 original cuts -- do not confuse this Greatest Hits collection with 2005's re-recorded Choice Picks anthology -- including two culled from their original incarnation as Great Buildings. While the group did actually exist before Friends -- their 1990 debut boasted the Top 20 smash "Just the Way It Is, Baby" -- it took a sitcom about a bunch of New York City twentysomethings to give the band a place in popular culture. "I'll Be There for You" was originally a 45-second soundbite attributed to five co-writers, and it wasn't until a Nashville DJ looped the cut into a three-minute song -- prompting a flurry of requests -- that the studio asked the duo to record an extended version. What followed was both an albatross and a blessing, providing the group with a sizable income but hindering their attempts at getting anything else across to the public(allmusic.com)

In my mind Danny Wilde is one of the most gifted pop songwriters. This guy was in the Quick, Great Buildings, Rembrandts and was involved in so much great pop projects. A really great musician. And by the way, he is also a very fine guitarist.
 About the album there is nothing to say it speaks for itself.

Have fun
                 Frank   Flac part 1  &  Flac part 2  &  Flac part 3         mp3@320

Pop, Pop Rock, Power Pop: Gin Blossoms - No Chocolate Cake (2010 429 Records) Flac & mp3@320

Perhaps it’s the curse of Doug Hopkins, but the Gin Blossoms have rarely been able to strike gold on their own, with most of their biggest hits being written by someone outside of the band. First, there was co-founder Hopkins himself, who wrote “Hey Jealousy” and “Found Out About You” before his alcoholism resulting in his dismissal from the group before either song was released. Then there was Marshall Crenshaw, who co-wrote the band’s first Top 10 hit, “Til I Heart It From You,” in 1995. When the Gin Blossoms returned in 2006 with Major Lodge Victory, they partnered up with the Rembrandts’ Danny Wilde, who wrote several of the album’s tracks. Wilde is back on board for No Chocolate Cake, this time in a more active role that finds him producing, co-writing, and playing on most of the album. That’s not meant to diminish the group’s own contributions, which retain much of the spunk from the Gin Blossoms’ mid-‘90s heyday. Robin Wilson’s voice is strong, if a bit nasal at points, and the songs have a familiar heartland hum to them, with Jessie Valenzuela and Scott Johnson filling each one with jangled guitar arpeggios and tasteful solos. None of these tunes can compete with the band’s singles, of course, but that’s not the point, since No Chocolate Cake sets its sights on maintaining the band’s audience rather than reclaiming a spot in the mainstream.(allmusic.com)

A lot pop songs full of ear candy. Surely mainstream pop but who cares. If i like a song, i like the song right?

Enjoy
         Frank                              Flac part 1 & Flac part 2        mp3@320

British psychedelic Folk-Rock: Circulus - Clocks Are Like People (2006 Rise Above Records) Flac & mp3

A fanciful blend of traditional British folk, prog rock, psychedelia, and folk-rock, with a cultural mindset that is rarely seen outside of a revival screening of The Wicker Man, Circulus is the brainchild of Michael Tyack, a songwriter and musician who has set out to create music that exists in the 20th and 16th centuries at once. Based in South London, with Tyack the only constant member after dozens of personnel shifts, Circulus incorporate the drums, guitars, and Moog synthesizers you'd expect from a rock band with a retro early-'70s approach, but also features a variety of medieval instruments, including crumhorns, recorders, and a reed instrument called the rauch pfeifer, whose intense volume Tyack declares "isn't really acceptable to modern ears." Circulus are nearly as well-known for their collective fashion sense as for their music, with Tyack costuming himself and his accompanists in thrift-shop capes, caftans, hats, and masks that are equally influenced by the British hippie scene and Tyack's self-proclaimed model in style, Philip the Good, who was the Duke of Burgundy in the 13th century. Add to this the stated belief of Tyack and his bandmates in pixies, fairies, and "old gods" and you get a group whose reputation for eccentricity precedes it, but Circulus have also won a loyal audience for the strength of their music, with fans ranging from traditional music enthusiasts to death metal addicts. Circulus made their recorded debut in 1999 with an EP entitled Giantism, but it wasn't until 2005 that the band found a sympathetic record label interesting in financing an album-length recording -- Rise Above Records, an extreme metal label that issued Circulus' full-length debut, The Lick on the Tip of an Envelope Yet to Be Sent. A second album, Clocks Are Like People, followed a year later.(allmusic.com)

  Circulus offers an intriguing, mystical, and very eccentric blend of British folk, psychedelic rock, progressive rock, and medieval music. One hears a lot of '60s and '70s influences, ranging from Jethro Tull to the Fairport Convention to Pink Floyd to the Moody Blues -- only Circulus is much more bizarre than any of those bands. This trippy effort doesn't run away from the stereotypes of either psychedelic music or medieval folk; instead, the London-based Circulus affectionately embraces those stereotypes, and the end result is a disc that is bound to be loved by some and mocked by others. But the band's odes to fairies, pixies, and scarecrows -- although highly self-indulgent at times -- still have a lot of meat on their bones and can be strangely charming and even ethereal. There is definitely a method to this madness, and the Londoners' ability to find some parallels between the '60s and '70s and the 13th and 14th centuries speaks well of them. Of course, that type of thing isn't unprecedented; Ian Anderson brought a strong medieval influence to Jethro Tull's psychedelic explorations long before Circulus existed. But again, Circulus is much stranger and offers considerable rewards to those who are broad-minded and patient enough to go along for the ride.(excerpts from allmusic.com)


Enjoy
         Frank

                            Flac part 1  &   Flac part 2            - mp3@320

Psychedelic Pop: Ultimate Painting - Dusk (2016 Trouble In Mind) Flac & mp3

After releasing two very fine albums of relaxed guitar pop in a two-year span and touring incessantly, one might expect the duo of James Hoare and Jack Cooper to kick back and take a break. It appears they don't operate that way, and Dusk, the third Ultimate Painting album in as many years, hit the stores in late 2016. By this time, Hoare and Cooper had perfected their writing and recording techniques, melding their two styles into a blend that makes it hard to tell when one guy stops and the other starts. Their voices and guitars twine together in perfect harmony and the richness of this fusion helps make the sound they get on Dusk to be the warmest and most welcoming of their short, busy career. Adding new drummer Melissa Rigby to the mix means a few more cymbals here and there, maybe a couple more fills too, but she's a sympathetic collaborator and never overshadows the guitar jangle or the wispily quiet vocals. Unlike the group's other albums, there aren't any talking blues rambles or uptempo rockers; the mood is steady, melancholy, and quite autumnal in nature. Tracks like the slowly unwinding "Song for Brian Jones," the calmly rollicking "Who Is Your Next Target?," or the lush "Set Me Free" could be triggering for those who are brought to tears by the smell of burning leaves. The addition of the occasional acoustic guitar and electric piano only adds to the sepia-toned, lost-in-thought, wrapped-in-sweaters mood. With the Clientele mostly out of operation, Ultimate Painting are making a bid here to take over their place as "the band most likely to drink mulled cider and glumly kick leaves as they walk the chilly streets." Most bands with such a brisk work rate run the risk of burning themselves out too soon or simply repeating themselves until their record deals dry up. Unlike those sad souls, Hoare and Cooper just keep getting better while giving their proven formula a little tweak here and there, just enough to make it feel like a progression. Ultimate Painting have quickly proven themselves to be masters of understated emotion and restrained production, and Dusk is another tiny work of quiet brilliance.(allmusic.com)

Very relaxed work with their third album. Just great!

Enjoy
         Frank                                                  Flac   &  mp3@320