The Oxford Circle - Live At The Avalon 1966 (1997 Big Beat) Flac & mp3

Although the Oxford Circle are remembered by hardcore psychedelic collectors as a San Francisco psychedelic band due to their shows on the city's ballroom circuit in 1966 and 1967, they actually formed in Davis, about an hour to the east. The group played energetic garage-psychedelia that was heavily derivative of British bands such as the Yardbirds and Them, and managed to release just one single, "Foolish Woman"/"Mind Destruction," for the tiny World United label.

The flipside was a feedback-drenched piece of raw psychedelia, but it would not be appropriate to place the Oxford Circle in such rarefied air as unheralded Northern California psychedelic legends like the Great Society or even the Final Solution. The group's original material was unexceptional, owing more to punkish blues-rock than groundbreaking psychedelic sounds. Drummer Paul Whaley joined Blue Cheer, which sowed the seeds of the Oxford Circle's breakup, though oddly enough, future blues star Joe Louis Walker played with the group briefly.

Gary Lee Yoder, the Oxford Circle's principal songwriter, formed Kak (which recorded for Epic) and also showed up in a late version of Blue Cheer. An entire 1966 concert, in surprisingly excellent fidelity, formed the basis for an Oxford Circle CD in 1997 that also included their single and a couple of unissued cuts.(allmusic)

Powerful garage rock psychedelia.
Have fun
               Frank   Flac p1  & Flac p2 &  Flac p3            mp3@320

Squeeze - Piccadilly Collection 1996 A&M Records Flac & mp3@320

It bills itself as a greatest hits compilation, but Piccadilly Collection doesn't quite fit that description. Granted, the 18-track disc features some of Squeeze's biggest hits -- including "Tempted," "Black Coffee In Bed," "Pulling Mussels (From a Shell)," and "Hourglass" -- but the majority of the album consists of songs that will be totally unfamiliar to casual fans.

Aside from that handful of hits, Piccadilly Collection alternates between album tracks from latter-day Squeeze albums like Frank and Some Fantastic Place, and B-sides that have never before appeared on compact disc. Certainly, dedicated fans will be delighted to have the B-sides on CD, but they would have been better served by a full-fledged rarities collection. Similarly, casual fans would have been better served by a straight singles collection, or a more thorough retrospective -- even though this features 18 tracks, it short-changes all of the group's early records, including such classic new wave albums as Cool for Cats, Argybargy and East Side Story, in favor of the interminable medley "Squabs on Forty Fab." That said, apart from "Squabs on Forty Fab," there's no weak tracks here, and it all adds up to an entertaining listen, even if its very existence is a little puzzling.(allmusic)

This is naturally no 'Greatest Hits' album but it's an album with a lot great songs. It's slightly more relaxed in some songs as usual.
They are for sure one of the greatest pop bands who ever comes from Britain.
Viel Spass
                 Frank                 Flac p1  & Flac p2  & Flac p3     - mp3@320 p1  - mp3@320 p2

Various - Thank You Friends: The Ardent Records Story (Big Beat/Ace Records 2008) Flac & mp3@320

Ardent Studios is renowned as a place where everyone from R.E.M. and the Replacements to ZZ Top and the White Stripes cut great albums, but for many pop fans the name Ardent is associated with the Memphis-based independent label from the 1960s and '70s, the one that put out the three beloved albums by power pop legends Big Star. Ardent has a history that stretches back far before Big Star, as they issued their first single in 1960, a full twelve years before #1 Record.

This history is chronicled on Ace's astounding double-disc set Thank You Friends: The Ardent Record Story, the first thorough document of Ardent and, along with it, the Memphis underground pop movement of the '60s and '70s.
Ardent functioned as the fulcrum for all the Memphis misfits obsessed with the British Invasion and thereby not part of the city's soul and blues-drenched music scene: this was as true at the start of the '60s as it was during the label's power pop heyday in the '70s.

In fact, Thank You Friends makes a convincing case that the power pop glory years couldn't have happened without the foundation that Ardent head honcho John Fry laid during that first stretch of the '60s, when he was cutting garage bands and folk-rock. After cutting the stomping, gleefully moronic "Geraldine" with the Ole Miss Downbeats, Fry let the label lie for several years, during which time he became obsessed with the British Invasion -- not the gritty blues of the Rolling Stones, which he disdained, but the sterling pop of the Beatles, the crunching camp of the Kinks, and the modern pop art of the Who and the Yardbirds.

Eventually, Fry found a fellow traveler in maverick producer Jim Dickinson, who helped jump start Ardent in 1966 with sneering singles by Lawson & Four More. These, along with the Avengers' trippy tremeloed "Batarang," the Bitter Ind's odd viola infused "Hands Are Only to See," and especially the Beatles-meets-Byrds treat of the Wallabies previously unreleased "White Doors" hinted at the tremulous, trebly pop of the Big Star heyday in its sound, but it was the songs recorded in the next few years -- the 18 songs that fill out the remainder of the first disc -- that truly established the Memphis pop sound and sensibility.

Of these 18, only four were released at the time, a startlingly low ratio that suggests the extent of how underground this scene really was. Fry tried to place these singles at larger labels, getting few bites, and soon the resident producer torch passed from Dickinson to Terry Manning, a pop guy who let other pop guys record late into the night in Ardent, learning how to navigate the studio and creating the signature sound of Memphis, where guitars rang and clanged in equal measure. This is a key to how isolated this scene was, not just from the rest of Memphis but the world at large; they were shut off in the studio, creating their own sound, the precursor to indie kids holed away in the basement with a guitar and four-track. This scene eventually wormed its way into such solipsistic navel-gazing in the form of the endless unfinished sessions for Big Star's 3rd -- its darkness brushed upon with the inclusion of an original mix of "Holocaust," but for the most part ignored as the Big Star-centric second disc focuses in their brilliant, blinding pop, often present in alternate mixes or demos, some of which are revelatory (Chilton's spoken asides during the original version of "Mod Lang" are disarming), all of which help their very familiar music seem fresh again.

Big Star is clearly central to the Ardent story and Thank You Friends, which is appropriate as they are at the core of the label's mythology and legacy, as there were countless bands in the next decade as indebted to them as they were to the Beatles. The band dominates this collection, via these alternate mixes and rarities from both Chris Bell and Alex Chilton (the original mixes of "Free Again" and "The EMI Song (Smile for Me)" are particular highlights). This may hook in the Big Star fanatics who may not realize the depth of the band's scene. They might not know the pre-history of Rock City and Icewater, they might know who their peers Cargoe & the Hot Dogs were, they might not know that Tommy Hoehn & the Scruffs carried on the tradition after the band splintered in the mid-'70s. All that evidence is here on this glorious and important reissue, one that makes a convincing case for the uniqueness of the Ardent-based pop scene -- not just through Big Star but beyond -- through its wealth of ageless power pop.(allmusic.com)

I know most of the experts already will have this wonderful double disc. But, like the most music here, it's also meant for all the folks who don't know music by artists like here on the album or what i post here on the blog. For example younger people or people who are looking for another kind of music as presented in the so called 'Hot 100' or the mainstream media. Lol, what i want to say is if you don't know it grab it, it's a very nice piece of music and especially in american pop music a great piece of music history.

Enjoy it
             Frank     Flac p1 & Flac p2                mp3 p1   -   mp3 p2

Artwork added for ''Paul Jones - The Paul Jones Collection - Vol.1 My Way 1966/67 (1996 RPM Records) Flac & mp3''

Hello Folks i hope all of you have a nice weekend. Yesterday i posted the Paul Jones album My Way from the RPM Collection series. But i was too lazy yesterday scannning the artwork. But now it's ready and you can grab it. I put the link in the post of Paul Jones from yesterday.
Have fun and a nice day.

Cheers
           Frank

'60s Californian Psychedelic/Sunshine/Baroque Pop: Pidgeon - Pidgeon (1969 Decca Records) Flac & mp3@320

Pidgeon's obscure, sole self-titled album is most notable for marking the recording debut of Jobriath (here billed as Jobriath Salisbury), who five years later became notorious as a failed glam rocker whose debut solo album didn't come close to justifying its hype and promotional budget. In Pidgeon, however, he was just an ordinary if somewhat effete pop-psychedelic singer/songwriter, also playing keyboards and guitar on the record. Falling on the somewhat heavier and more psychedelic side of sunshine pop, perhaps, it's a record of unsatisfyingly busy, restless songs, written by Jobriath with lyricist Richard T. Marshall.

Many of the tracks employ tinny harpsichord and male-female harmonies (with autoharpist Cheri Gage) that are blatantly imitative of the Mamas & the Papas; occasionally, there are more distant echoes of Jefferson Airplane, with Jobriath sometimes faintly approaching the stridency of Marty Balin's vocal style. At times, it's like hearing an unholy collision of the Mamas & the Papas and the Left Banke, but without the rigorous structure and concision John Phillips and Michael Brown were able to bring to those group's compositions and arrangements. Certainly the slightly melodramatic high lead vocals are identifiably Jobriathian even at this stage, but this is really only for serious collectors of either Jobriath or late-'60s Californian psychedelic pop.(allmusic)

Very good sunshine pop from California with fine vocals work. And it's often not the usual sound of so many sunshine bands what the band presents here.Well done folks

Have fun
               Frank     Flac           mp3@320

VA - Hallucinations - Psychedelic Pop Nuggets From The WEA Vaults (2004 Rhino Records) Flac & mp3

Since the first Nuggets in 1972, the entire series has been grounded in the gritty, dirty sound of garage rock, so much so that Rhino's 2001 box set of British and foreign psychedelic nuggets favored harder rock over the fruity, precious side of British psych. Collectors treasured rare singles before Nuggets, but the series created an aesthetic that emphasized the raw, trippy, wild, and woolly over the soft, lush, harmony-laden psychedelicized sounds of AM pop radio. The Rubble Collection, Mindrockers, The Trash Box -- all of them were dedicated to freaky guitar rock, and that mindset ruled until the latter half of the '90s, when the well had started to run dry, as labels like Sundazed issued the complete recorded works of obscure garage rockers who had released only one single during their lifetimes.

Around this time, collectors -- including many third-generation music fanatics raised in the era of CD reissues rather than record fairs -- began to favor the soft sunshine pop of the late '60s, when square vocal groups started to get hip and record trippy music. Bands like the Millennium, the Association, and Yellow Balloon became hip currency, as did producers like Curt Boettcher and songwriters like Paul Williams. This was close to anathema for the hardcore garage rock fiends because this was not rock & roll, it was pop music whose commercial aspirations failed. Nevertheless, most hardcore record geeks have a fondness for this stuff, since it's not only melodic and well produced, but it's terribly interesting to hear how underground ideas were borrowed and assimilated into mainstream music; often, it's as strange as it was in the underground, if not stranger. Fans of this breed of psychedelic pop were insatiable, and there was a certain thrill to the fact that it was hard to track down, since it was either issued in Japan, buried as album tracks on reissues, or never made it to CD at all. That's why Rhino Handmade's foray into the sound with Hallucinations: Psychedelic Pop Nuggets from the WEA Vaults and its companion release, Come to the Sunshine: Soft Pop Nuggets from the WEA Vaults, is so welcome -- while they're only available as limited editions (primarily sold via www.rhinohandmade.com), they're also the first widely available American samplers of this style. That alone would make them noteworthy, but what makes them essential (at least for hardcore record collectors), is that they're expertly done.

Where previous installments of Nuggets concentrated on singles, Hallucinations is a true excavation of the vaults, picking overlooked album tracks and neglected singles from a cornucopia of WEA-owned labels, including Warner Bros., Cotillion, Jubilee, Valiant, Reprise, and Atco. While the focus is on acts that released a single or forgotten album, there are a handful of recognizable names -- the Association, Kim Fowley, the Electric Prunes, the Bonniwell Music Machine, the Tokens, the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band -- and in the Monkees' "Porpoise Song," there's even a genuine hit. But that song is the exception to the rule: most of these are quite obscure, and it's even arguable that because they were released on major labels (or at the very least, high-profile labels), the songs haven't been given the attention or respect as psychedelia released on smaller, regional labels. That argument is laid out in the introduction of the excellent liner notes, and the music on Hallucinations supports it strongly. Often, collections of rare heavy psychedelia and garage rock can grow a little samey even when the musical quality is high, since bands tended to emulate the same sounds and ideas, using the same production techniques as their peers.

Hallucinations is a much more interesting listen than the average psychedelic rarities collection since these underground ideas are applied in bizarre, unpredictable ways to professionally written, melodic songs that were designed for mainstream radio. Where its companion collection, Come to the Sunshine, is heavy on lush surfaces and harmonies, Hallucinations is overtly trippy and psychedelic, filled with fuzz guitars, echoes, phased vocals, organs, studio effects, and minor-key drones. This brings it closer to familiar Nuggets territory, but there's a much heavier emphasis on studiocraft and production here than there is on anything on the original double-vinyl Nuggets or Rhino's original box set; again, the focus is on the record, not the song, even though there are some excellent songs here. Nevertheless, the sound and effects of the productions are the most memorable aspects, such as the way the vocals and guitars swirl through the Next Exit's Tokens-produced "Break Away" or how Jeff Thomas' "Straight Aero," quite likely the trippiest square anthem ever recorded, has a weird undercurrent of menace in its hiccupping bass and clanging piano
.

Hallucinations is filled with moments as strong as this, and it makes a convincing argument that psychedelic pop is at its best when it's pure, undiluted ear candy like this. It's not just a good introduction to the charms of psychedelic pop; it holds its own next to any collection of freaky, guitar-fueled garage-psychedelic rarities.

This is a real great compilation and highly recommendable.
Have fun
             Frank       Flac p1 & Flac p2  -  mp3@320 p1  -  mp3@320 p2

Psychedelic Prog by The Cleves - The Cleves 1970 Flac & mp3@320

The Cleves' only album was competent but uninspiring, typical early-'70s progressive rock, all the material original save an eight-minute cover of "Summertime." With most of the songs hovering between five and seven minutes, it was given to long, not entirely purposeful vamps on organ and guitar, grinding out repetitive, basic hard rock riffs. The vocal sections were very much of-the-time hippie-oriented messages that aimed to uplift and reflect -- nothing to object to in and of themselves, but hardly profound, and often naïve.

 

Sometimes it's a little like hearing the hardest-rocking, most sophisticated parts of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's arrangements, without the songs of CSNY's caliber. Other styles of the day also get a peek, from Creedence Clearwater Revival-style roots rock ("Waterfall") and humming sustain guitar ("Keep Trying," "Time Has Come") to Lee Michaels-style organ ("For a Time"). Unfortunately, the album is not as good as the far more superior influences it uses as reference points.(R.Unterberger)

Give it a try, it's a real good psychedelic prog effort and much better than a lot of their
contemporarys. Real good songs here.
Have fun
               Frank                  Flac p1 & Flac p2 &  Flac p3  - mp3@320

Paul Jones - The Paul Jones Collection - Vol.1 My Way 1966/67 (1996 RPM Records) Flac & mp3

Jones' debut album, 1966's My Way, found him and/or his record company seemingly determined to follow a far more all-around pop entertainer sound than Paul had trodden as the lead singer of Manfred Mann. Such strategies rarely yield fruitful results, and that was the case here, with a set list that, in trying to please everybody, came up short all around. Much of it is big-ballad pop in a sub-Tom Jones sort of style, and R&B/blues influences are, incredibly, virtually absent. Jones does manage to sneak in a few of his own songs (including an inferior remake of one he had done with the Manfreds, "She Needs Company"), but these are hardly exceptional. Coming on the heels of the Manfred Mann era, the bloated British orchestral-pop arrangements -- more suited to Petula Clark (but not as good as Petula's) -- were disappointing indeed, yet the album did yield a big British hit with "High Time." The CD reissue improves things considerably with the addition of nine bonus cuts from the same era, taken from EPs, singles, and unreleased tracks. These are highlighted by the EP versions of "Privilege" and "Free Me" (the latter reworked by Patti Smith in the mid-'70s), although be aware that this is not the same version of "Free Me" as the one on the soundtrack to the Privilege film. There's also Jones' second and last U.K. Top Ten hit, "I've Been a Bad, Bad Boy," as well as an unexpected blast of pure blues with the B-side "Sonny Boy Williamson," co-written by Jack Bruce, who also plays bass on the song.(allmusic.com)
 

Here is Paul Jones' solo debut from 1966 with nine bonus tracks. It's called ''My Way''. RPM released three volumes by Paul Jones. The complete title you see in the headline. This is a fresh rip i have done today. I will post the complete artwork a little later today. Thanks for understanding and your patience Folks.

Have fun
               Frank                   Flac p1 & Flac p2        - mp3@320

                                                                 Complete artwork

The Troggs - From Nowhere 1966 (2003 Repertoire Records) Flac & mp3

The Troggs' debut British LP was substantially different, and distinctly inferior to, their first American long-player (Wild Thing), although eight of the songs appear on both records. The tracks unique to the British edition are all covers: "Ride Your Pony" and the obscure "The Kitty Cat Song" (both taken from Lee Dorsey), "Louie Louie," and Chuck Berry's "Jaguar and Thunderbird."

And none of them are so hot. "Wild Thing" is the highlight of the disc, and the rest of the set is a mixed bag, peaks being the primordial power of "From Home" and "I Just Sing," as well "Jingle Jangle," the first of Reg Presley's tuneful ballads. The vaudevillian "Hi Hi Hazel," on the other hand, is a lowlight. There's no "Lost Girl," "With a Girl Like You," or "I Want You," all of which made the U.S. Wild Thing a better counterpart to this release, although this didn't prevent From Nowhere from rising to number six in the British charts.

All of the good tracks appear on Archeology, but if you want the material anyway, it's been paired with their second British LP, Trogglodynamite, on a single-CD reissue on BGO.(allmusic.com)

To me the Troggs were clearly a Power Pop band with a garage sound but no proto punks like some critics said. They had catchy songs (a lot) and also jangly guitar sounds in her later songs. And they had a very own sound.

Enjoy
         Frank                Flac
                                             mp3@320

Complete 3D Artwork for The Pillbugs - The 3-Dimensional In-Popsycle Dream 2003

Good Morning, Good Day or Good Evening wherever you are. As i yesterday said, i would post the artwork later. Sorry but i was too tired to do it. But now it's ready. I scanned it this morning and i think you will like it. I will add the link in the Pillbug post from yesterday.

Kind regards
                    Frank   

Enclosure item ''View-Master

Martin Newell - The Spirit Cage (2000 Cherry Red Records) Flac & mp3@320

One of the great eccentrics of modern English pop/rock, Martin Newell's songs are recommended listening for anyone who enjoys the peculiarly British eccentricities of Ray Davies, Andy Partridge, Syd Barrett, and the like. His grasp of the pop hook was second to few throughout the 1980s and '90s; his arrangements favor a guitar jangle but are usually infused with a whimsical eclecticism full of goofy sound effects and unusual garnishes of unexpected percussion and string instruments. His voice is winningly quizzical, but his chief assets are his compositions, which reflect contemporary English life with a wry combination of affection and cynicism.

For most of the 1980s, Newell was the mainstay of Cleaners from Venus, who recorded most of their albums at home for cassette-only self-release, although they eventually put out some vinyl product. After a short stint as head of the similar Brotherhood of Lizards, Martin started a solo career in the 1990s that was essentially a continuation of the territory he'd explored in the 1980s; sometimes he re-recorded songs from the previous decade. The difference, if any, was that he was concentrating on the proper official album market instead of the cassette underground, with somewhat higher (though not slick) production values.

Newell's most acclaimed album was 1993's The Greatest Living Englishman, which was produced by Andy Partridge of XTC. The Off White Album (1995) was a bit more baroque in approach, with occasional string arrangements. Spirit Cage was issued in fall 2000, and a collection of home-brewed recordings from 2010 through 2014, Teatime Assortment, appeared in 2015.

Newell has co-written material with Captain Sensible and is a poet/humorist of some renown in Britain, publishing his own prose with a good deal of success and writing humorous pieces for the Independent newspaper. Ironically, his music is virtually unknown on his home turf, although he enjoys a considerable cult following in Germany, Japan, France, and on certain American college radio stations(allmusic.com)

This guy is just great!
Enjoy the album
                           Frank      Flac p1  & Flac p2   -  mp3@320

Canadian Power Pop from The New Pornographers - Electric Version (2003 Matador Records) Flac & mp3@320

Three years after the sonic honey of Mass Romantic, the New Pornographers come up smiling once more with their sophomore effort and Matador debut, Electric Version. These beloved indie rockers stick with the syrupy goodness found on their first album, but opt to turn the amps up for a brighter, slicker sound, hence the title. It's a kitschy play on the band's power pop, and Carl Newman and secret member Dan Bejar keep their clever lyrical twists in tune. Twiddling riffs and organs dance with Neko Case's sunny harmonies on the rollicking "It's Only Divine Right" and "From Blown Speakers." The energy is there, but Electric Version captures a new kind of energy from the New Pornographers. While Mass Romantic was a little more quirky in spirit, Electric Version is more polished. They took just under a year to create this album, so naturally a fresh confidence would transpire and "The Laws Have Changed" highlights the New Pornographers' musical growth.

This album standout is bold as brass, drenched in Case and Newman's perky vocals. "All for Swinging You Around" takes things further with wacky synth beats and tripped-up percussion, Velocity Girl-style, but its the band's own glossed-over rock & roll on "Miss Teen Worldpower" that truly represents the smooth emotion and might behind the New Pornographers' sound. Electric Version is an enjoyable and easy listen, chock-full of hungry hooks and brimming with indie rock's classic humility.

Maybe my favourite album by this fantastic band. But who can say it exactly? They did so much great stuff.

Have Fun
                Frank    Flac p1 & Flac p2      - mp3@320