At Request: The Merrymakers - Bubblegun 1997 (1999 Big Deal Records 2 Disc US Version) Flac & mp3

By this point in their career, it seems as if the duo of Anders Hellgren and David Myhr should have four or five acclaimed releases under their belts and be household names in the world of pop music. Bubblegun, however, is only the Merrymakers' second full-length album (and their first in the U.S.), though they have been making unabashedly joyous and pretty pop since 1991. Their first album, No Sleep 'til Famous, brought the comparatively innocent and clear-eyed pop of the '60s into the '90s via a sophisticated and clean production. The band does the same on Bubblegun, crafting a set of songs that sound as if they could all be singles.

Undoubtedly, many of them would have been hits in the era from which they glean their influences, but the Merrymakers are not a retro act; they simply write gorgeous, catchy pop songs that are universal, transcending both time and place. Very rarely anymore do choruses explode out of speakers and simply envelop the listener with pure pleasure as do songs such as "Saltwater Drinks," "Troubled Times" and "Superstar." The songs, though they are incredibly melodic and crisply produced, are not in the least vapid. There is an edginess to many of the tracks, and lyrically, the Merrymakers do not shy away from difficult themes: "Monkey in the Middle" and "Superstar" deal with fading fame while the theme of lost love is all over the album ("April's Fool," "Sad," "Ms. Demeanour"). Never, though, does this cause the music or listening experience to drag or grate. Former Jellyfish frontman Andy Sturmer helps out on production on a few songs (and co-wrote a couple cuts), and he is a perfect match for the band
.

Since this is the band's first American release, Big Deal has added a bonus to the package: a second CD containing five songs from their first album. Those songs have a slightly more trippy feel to them but shine just as brightly as the songs on the first CD. It makes for a virtually flawless pop album: in a perfect world, Bubblegun would make the Merrymakers a household name.(allmusic.com)

This is the US release with the bonus disc for the US market with five songs from their first album. Some big names involved here in the production and songwriting. It's a fine Power pop album with '60s influences.
Have fun
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Sixties Psychedelic Pop: Del Shannon - Further Adventures Of Charles Westover 1968 (1998 BGO Records) Flac & mp3

This lesser-known cult favorite is not only one of the most musically ambitious outings of Del Shannon's career, but also one of his most all-around consistent albums. The Further Adventures of Charles Westover finds Shannon embracing psychedelia in a personalized way: Instead of imitating the whimsy of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, or the creepy freak-outs of Their Satanic Majesties Request, he uses the cinematic quality of psychedelic pop to provide a vivid backdrop for his songwriting. For instance, "Silver Birch" uses a swirling mass of horns and densely layered backing vocals to add a haunting quality to its tale of an abandoned bride, and "Color Flashing Hair" uses vertiginous string motifs and churning horns to re-create the feelings of obsessive love described in the lyrics. Shannon's work on this album also differs from usual psychedelic fare because it mixes some earthier textures into its sonic brew: "Be My Friend" enhances its lusty plea for feminine companionship with wailing harmonica and gospel-tinged female backing vocals, and "River Cool" laces its swinging beat with some deliciously soulful organ licks. The overall effect is stunning, managing to fit the tag of psychedelic pop but still retaining the haunting, emotional kind of songwriting that distinguished Del Shannon's music. (allmusic.com)

This album is just GREAT. Everytime i listen to it it blow me away. ''I Think I Love You'' is psychedelic pop at it's best. And this is just one example of the album. You can take nearly every song and it is a great one. For me it's really hard to understand why the album failed to reach the charts back then.
Hope you have fun
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Pop Rock/Jangle Pop by Mike Shupp - October Sun 1997 Flac & mp3

A singer/songwriter influenced by the jangly pop of the 80's Athens scene, Mike Shupp writes heartland pop with crunching guitars and a sugary sweet voice. A Virginia native, Shupp first played with Bang Theory in the early 90's, but when the band fell apart he found himself unable to keep another outfit together. Undaunted, he simply went solo, releasing October Sun in 1997 and garnering raves from Spin Magazine among other sources.

After a period of live performances, Shupp stepped into the studio with producer Jeff Murphy in 2000 for The Key. Recorded in Chicago, the album was entirely performed by Shupp outside of the percussion. Hitting the road after favorable local reviews, Shupp took less time in between albums and returned in the spring of 2002 to record This Time. The record, mixed by Indigo Girls producer Don McCollister, arrived in September of the same year.(allmusic.com)

I needed two or three spins in the beginning i listened to the album. After that the album was for a longer time regular in my player. This guy is a very good songwriter at least what i hear on this album. Give it a try if you like laid back jangle pop with strong songs.

Cheers
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Two on One CD release on BGO Records 1995: Del Shannon - Live In England & And The Music Plays On 1973 & 1978 (1995 Beat Goes On Records) Flac & mp3@320

This 1996 reissue of these two Del Shannon albums is impeccable in its logic, nearly 80 minutes long and combining the best (and most common) of his latter-day albums with the rarest and most interesting of them. The sound is killer all the way through, mastered at a high volume with lots of detail. Even at import prices, it's cheaper than finding a copy of And the Music Plays On on vinyl.(allmusic)

Live in England is from 1973 and what's called here ''And The Music Plays On'' was released 1978. Eleven years after it was recorded. Del Shannon recorded the album 1967 with Andrew Loog Oldham. The original name for the album was ''Home And Away'' and were planned as following album of his last album released by Liberty. Why it not happened? I don't know. In my opinion it is one of his best works together with ''The Further Adventures Of Charles Westover'' (i will post later).

Del Shannon’s Home & Away never saw a proper release in the 1960s. These tracks would eventually see light of day on the 1978 vinyl LP/compilation titled And The Music Plays On.  Record executives of the day were looking for heavy, underground sounds, not dense, wall-of-sound type productions that featured complex vocal arrangements, strings, harpsichords, and plenty of horns.  The music on this disc was recorded in 1967 with Rolling Stones’ manager Andrew Loog Oldham sitting in the producer’s chair.   Home & Away was considered passe stuff for 1967 and shelved shortly after, as Del began work on his psychedelic masterpiece, The Further Adventures of Charles Westover.  The 2006 EMI reissue has excellent stereo sound and presents the LP in it’s proper context – a must own for fans of  the mid 60s Beach Boys, the Zombies and the Left Banke.

It’s useless to point out highlights on this great, lost pop album.  “Runaway ’67” is exactly what it claims to be; a 1967 update of Del’s classic smash.  This cut has a strong Left Banke feel with it’s swirling strings and baroque arrangement.  Del’s vocals sound haunted and seamlessly mesh with Oldham’s productions.  They hit the mark on nearly every track.  This means that each song on the album flows effortlessly, whether it’s the trippy harpsichord intro to “Easy To Say, Easy To Do” or the romantic pop of “My Love Is Gone.”   My hit picks are the shimmering psychedelic pop of “Silently” and the beautiful Pet Sounds influenced gem “It’s My Feeling.”  Del only penned 3 of the LP’s tracks but he and Oldham did a good job choosing fine material from outside writers – the 3 Billy Nichols selections are pop gems.

Home & Away is just a shade or two less important than The Further Adventures of Charles Westover. It’s proof that this type of early rocker could forge on into the late 60s and make great, experimental music without losing their identity.  Del Shannon is one of those hard luck artists who made excellent music all throughout the decade but never received his due.(therisingstorm.net)

Enjoy
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Debut by Marshall Crenshaw - Marshall Crenshaw 1982 (2009 Warner Rec. Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab SACD) Flac & mp3@320

In retrospect, 1982 was a brief, exhilarating moment in between the fall of disco and the rise of MTV, when the eternal verities of real rock & roll broke through once again. The punk and new wave music of the late '70s had given way to power-pop, a return to catchy, relatively unadorned guitar rock. In that context, it was easy to see Marshall Crenshaw and his self-titled debut album as the Next Big Thing. Hailing from music-rich Detroit but based in new wave mecca New York City, Crenshaw looked like Buddy Holly by way of Elvis Costello, and sounded like that combination too. His short, simple songs had an obvious lineage, but Crenshaw further updated the sound and added a lightly sardonic tone à la Costello, giving it a smart-alecky New York edge. Not only did critics love the result, but the immediate surface charms of the music seemed to bode for a quick trip to the top. But although "Someday, Someway" reached the Top 40 and the LP got halfway up the Top 100, that did not happen. Maybe because Crenshaw was perhaps a little too faithful to his old records. Any record collector had to love a guy who knew enough to cover Arthur Alexander's "Soldier of Love."

Yet Holly and Costello got away with their essentially nerdy appearance by working against it, always seeming about to break out of the image; Crenshaw, from the art deco cover of his album to his perfectly echoed vocals, seemed to fetishize the look and sound, more a formalist than a stylist. Or maybe it was just that by the end of 1982, Michael Jackson had released Thriller and Duran Duran was cavorting on MTV. In any case, Marshall Crenshaw remains a great album.(allmusic).

Top notch pop/power pop album by Crenshaw and in the times then it was for me a ray of hope in the music scene of the early eighties. Like some others of the great power pop bands/artists of the late seventies and early eighties. All this bands who took the rock'n'roll of the fifties, the mod sound of british sixties, byrdsian jangle guitars with seventies punk rock and beatles inspired harmonies.
Highly recommended!
Have fun
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Barnaby Bye - Touch 1974 (2010 Wounded Bird Records) Flac & mp3@320

This was the second album by Barnaby Bye. And it's perfect. It's different from the debut. Here the songs are more in a soul direction produced. Maybe the band tried this because the debut album was no success. The songwriting is first class and i think the band had tried to make an commercial album but it failed to reach the charts. I prefer the first album. Nevertheless this is a top notch album. What do you think?

Enjoy
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The Electric Prunes - Mass In F Minor 1968 (2013 Rhino Original Album Series ) Flac & mp3

For fans of the Electric Prunes, the 1968 Reprise album Mass in F Minor is a disaster, but for aficionados of failed and bizarre concept records of the late '60s, it's definitely worth investigating. The eight tracks on this religious-based rock opera (with lyrics sung in Latin!) were written, arranged, and conducted by classical composer David Axelrod and spurred on by then-Prunes manager Lenny Poncher and record producer Dave Hassinger. Evidently, all parties involved, including the band, agreed that this project would propel the Electric Prunes from minor-league garage rockers into a finely tuned psychedelic ensemble to be taken seriously as musicians and artists. Unfortunately, the Prunes were not prepared to tackle Axelrod's complex and involved arrangements without a major struggle. In order to keep the sessions from going into costly overtime, Hassinger brought in studio musicians to finish the project. The results were completely unlike the group's previous two releases, with the majority of the tracks being performed by ad hoc Prunes. Shortly after the album's release, the original lineup faded into obscurity, taking Mass in F Minor with them. However, an eerie version of "Kyrie Eleison" received fleeting attention when it was featured in the film Easy Rider.(allmusic)

Surely this album is different from other works by the Prunes but is it bad because of this ? No way.
It seems that the audience love this album more than some critics. By the way six tracks not eight! Anyway take it or leave it

Cheers
           Frank   Flac   &  mp3@320

The Penthouse 5 - The World Is Love! (1966-1967) (1997 Collectables) mp3@256

The Penthouse 5 were one of dozens of unsung bands floating around Texas in the mid-'60s. Based on the recorded evidence, however, they were also one of the great ones; lots of acts claim the Beatles as inspiration, but the Penthouse 5 translated the Beatles (and, to some extent, the Byrds) influence into garage rock terms about as well as any of them. The mix of Beatles-like harmonies, crunchy guitars, and pumping, grinding Farfisa organ is compelling and always surprising in its details and nuances. Justin Brown (lead guitar), Rob Graham (vocals), Mark Porter (drums), Steve Wood (guitar, vocals, keyboards), and Bill Looney (bass) came out of Oak Cliff, not far from where Stevie Ray Vaughan hailed. They were part of an orbit of Beatles- and folk-rock-influenced musicians in the area that included songwriter Ron Price, who wrote "Don't Mess Around with My Dream, " the B-side of the Penthouse 5's debut single, "Bad Girl," and Jon Williams, who had been with a band called the By Fives and then with the WordD. By 1967, internal conflicts had driven Brown, Graham, and Porter out of the Penthouse 5's lineup, and they were succeeded by Jon Williams (vocals, keyboards, harmonica), Richard "Lurch" Keathley (lead guitar, vocals) -- who had both come from the Dallas-based the WordD -- and Mike Echart (drums). The new band, renamed the Penthouse, made another half-dozen records with producer Edward Greines; the Beatles influence was still discernable on songs like "You're Gonna Make Me," but the reconstituted Penthouse was more self-consciously heavy and serious, and cut singles for the Solar and Hawk labels.
By the end of 1967, however, the band had split up as Steve Wood moved to California, where he led a band called the New Life (who turn up on the soundtrack of The Sidehackers, a Gus Trikonis film that subsequently provided Mystery Science Theater 3000 with perhaps its funniest non-sci-fi moments), and played with Kenny Loggins. The rest of the group left the music business.(allmusic.com)

I found this recently on the web unfortunately only in 256mp3 quality. This is a very fine collection by Collectables with 20 songs. And it's a lot of really good stuff here. Give it a try and enjoy.

Cheers Frank     mp3@256

Psychedelic Rock By Neon Pearl - 1967 Recordings (2004 ACME Lion) Flac & mp3@320

The Neon Pearl trio consisted of Peter Dunton (vocals/guitar/keyboards/drums), Bernard Jinks (bass/backing vocals), and Nick Spenser (guitar/harmonium/keyboards). In 1967 they recorded the material issued on 1967 Recordings, which is fair if somber period British psychedelia in its hazy riffs, mild guitar distortions, and vocal harmonies, though the songs aren't too imaginative or varied. Dunton was also in the marginally less obscure British psychedelic bands the Flies and Please, while Jinks would later play in Bulldog Breed and T2, the latter of which also included Dunton. (Richie Unterberger)

This collection of obscure British psychedelia has a pleasantly foggy, ethereal feel. There are steadily jangling guitars, accomplished subdued distortion and effects, pulsating riffs, dreamy lyrics ("Dream Scream" is one title), and attractive vocal harmonies, with occasional harmonium tossing in an unusual spice. It fits the cliché of being suitable background music for launching into a meditative doze, or for an altered state of consciousness using specific substances. There's also a serious-mindedness to the mood that, while sincere, would probably never be adapted by a post-20th century band unless it was done with a certain amount of irony totally missing here.

What's to complain about? Not much, but the songs themselves are on the monotonous and undeveloped side, sounding more like grooves to work off of than fully realized compositions. The tracks could be viewed as vague forerunners of a more modern form of Terrastock-era psychedelic-influenced ambient and trance rock. But the absence of better songs confines this to the realm of specialists, and excludes it from the upper reaches of the better obscure late-'60s British psychedelic music that might be considered for exploration by collectors.  (Richie Unterberger)

If you don't know this sixties psychedelia band give the record a try
and enjoy
Cheers
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Barnaby Bye - Room To Grow 1973 (2010 Wounded Birds) Flac & mp3@320

With the formidable combination of talent, good looks, and a world class producer, it is surprising that Barnaby Bye's debut album, Room to Grow, wasn't a runaway smash. The talented twin teen-heartthrobs Bobby and Billy Alessi, together with former Blues Magoos guitarist Peppi Castro (aka, Emil Thielhelm), and ex-Illusion drummer Michael Ricciardella released Room to Grow in 1973 on Atlantic with some success, but without the popularity they probably deserved.

Their combination of Beatles-inspired songwriting, Queen-like vocal harmonies, and predilection for camp actually worked because they were talented enough to pull it off without sounding completely derivative. Exemplified by tunes like the wonderfully Brit-sounding "Jessie Girl," and the Marc Bolan-meets-Roy Wood rocker "Marsha Mamaillia," the boys proved that they could pay homage to their heroes without quoting them directly. As a result, the album is surprisingly solid and cohesive, with ballads like Billy Alessi's "I Feel for You" and Bobby Alessi's "Laneya" providing just the right amount of breathing room for the more upbeat tracks.

Barnaby Bye's Long Island-take on Brit-pop was probably more of a template for later retro-rock outfits like Jellyfish and the Merrymakers than the original bands themselves. A solid, fun, and enjoyable effort, Room to Grow should find a comfortable spot in any serious collection of '70s pop/rock.(allmusic)

Wonderful album by a gang of gifted musicians. Why an album like this failed to jump in the charts of the first half seventies is a mistery to me. If you like pop rock at it's best you should give it a try.
I will post the album that the band released one year later as well.
Have fun
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Doc Thomas Group And The Silence - The Italian Job Shotgun Eyes 1967 (1998 Angel Air Records) Flac & mp3

From the very tangled tree of about a dozen '60s bands that fed into the eventual formation of Mott the Hoople, the Doc Thomas Group were one of the most important, chiefly because they actually released an album. Future Hoople guitarist Mick Ralphs and bassist Pete Watts were both on board when the group recorded their sole LP (released only in Italy, where they were based for a time) in late 1966.

Future Mott drummer Dale Griffin (aka Buffin) joined the band in the spring of 1967, although he doesn't appear on the album, which featured Stan Tippins as lead singer. The self-titled LP consisted entirely of R&B/soul covers, executed derivatively and just about competently, in the style of mod bands of the period such as the Small Faces.

The Doc Thomas Group struggled on until 1968, changing their name to Silence with the addition of organist Terry (soon to become Verden) Allen; from that point, it was only a matter of recruiting Ian Hunter to replace Tippins to create Mott the Hoople in 1969. The extremely rare Doc Thomas Group album was reissued on CD in 1998, on a disc that also included a Silence "reunion" session recorded in 1990. (allmusic.com)

The story of Tippins was as the band was signed to Island the company said he don't fits in the new image of the band. Tippins hinself said to the band he want not stand in the way and would leave. That's how the business works...
Enjoy
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First Album Of Morning Dew - Morning Dew 1967 (2001 Akarma) Flac &mp3@320

Here is the first album by Morning Dew. It's a very interesting album because it is a little different to other psychedelic bands and sounds at that time. In some parts it remembers me to german krautrock bands. In the next moment you listen to a great pop line. This is not a typical american psychedelic album of the sixties in my ears. Except ''Country Boy Blue'', where you can hear from where the boys came.

Enjoy
         Frank      Flac p1 & Flac p2    - mp3@320