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Kurt Sampsel:
January, 2004
Top Ten Garage/Psychedelic
Reissues of 2003 (not really in any order)
1. The Gurus
The Gurus are Hear!
(Sundazed 2003)
http://www.sundazed.com/artists/gurus.html
"Highly anticipated" is putting
it mildly when describing this recent release from Sundazed.
The Gurus were based in New York City and released two amazing
singles for United Artists Records in 1966 and '67. The records
were decidedly special for their pioneering fusion of psychedelic
rock and Eastern music, a combination that the Gurus had mastered
even before The Beatles and other groups had made Eastern-flavored
rock trendy. United Artists recorded an entire album's worth
of material with the Gurus, and advertised an upcoming album
which was to be titled The Gurus are Hear. Unfortunately,
however, the project was inexplicably shelved, and the album
was never released. This Sundazed CD collects the Gurus' entire
recordings for United Artists, and includes their unreleased
album along with some alternates and outtakes. Finally the
Gurus' entire story is told, and it proves to have been largely
worth the wait.
2. The Grateful Dead
Birth of the Dead
(Rhino 2003)
www.dead.net
This two-CD set from Rhino does a great thing:
it collects rare, pre-Warner Bros. material recorded by the
Dead which has been the stuff of legends for years. The first
disc is comprised of studio recordings that the group recorded
in 1965 and '66. It includes their entire studio session for
Tom Donahue's Autumn Records as well as their recordings for
Scorpio records which resulted in their first single, "Stealin'"/"Don't
Ease Me In", released by Scorpio in the fall of 1966.
A session the group had with jazzman Jon Hendricks is also
included. The second disc of this set is comprised of live
recordings from 1966 which are notable not only for including
embryonic versions of songs that the Dead would become known
for like "Sitting on Top of the World" and "Viola
Lee Blues", but also some garage band requisites like
"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue", "Big Boss Man",
and "He Was a Friend of Mine". Birth of the Dead
is, without a doubt, the Grateful Dead at their most garage,
and it provides a great glimpse into the band's earliest days.
3. October Country
(Self-Titled)
(Rev-Ola 2003)
http://gullbuy.com/buy/2003/12_16/octobercountry.cfm
This CD from Rev-Ola is just one of the great
releases that the label churned out in 2003. October Country
was a project of legendary producer Michael Lloyd, who was
a compatriot of the perhaps better-known Kim Fowley, and who
worked with the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band among
many others. October Country released their self-titled album
on Epic in 1968 to little fanfare or notice, but the record
went on to become much admired by fans of West Coast psychedelic
pop, along with other projects of Lloyd's such as The Smoke.
This Rev-Ola CD reissues the Epic album and includes several
mono single mixes, as well as a nice booklet which gives the
background of October Country and their album.
4. The Palace Guard
(Self-Titled)
(Gear Fab 2003)
http://www.swiftsite.com/gearfab/Catalog_List/catalog_96.html
LA's Palace Guard were well known on the
Southern California club circuit, proudly serving as featured
band at the legendary Hullaballoo Club and opening for many
of the era's top acts who performed there. The teenage drummer
for the Guard was none other than Emitt Rhodes, who would
go on to lead another legendary LA group, The Merry-Go-Round,
as well as to embark on an artistically successful (if perhaps
not especially lucrative) solo career. The Palace Guard released
six singles in 1965 and '66 on the Orange Empire and Parkway
labels. Their fourth single, "Falling Sugar", was
issued nationally by Verve Records and came close to becoming
a national hit. "Falling Sugar" remains their best-known
song, and was featured on Rhino's acclaimed Nuggets
box set. This recent CD from Gear Fab compiles the A- and
B-sides of every one of the group's singles, and comes as
a welcome reissue considering both the strength of their material
and their significance to LA's club scene and to Rhodes's
career.
5. Bob Dylan
Highway 61 Revisited
(Columbia/Sony 2003)
www.bobdylan.com
An artist who certainly needs no introduction.
Like many other Columbia artists, Dylan's catalog was released
on CD for the first time in the late 1980s. Unlike other Columbia
artists however, Dylan's music was not a part of the lavish
repackaging and remastering program which saw very nice reissues
of artists like the Byrds and Simon and Garfunkel released
in the last few years. Fans had to wait until 2003 to see
Columbia "revisiting" the Bob Dylan catalog on CD.
Highway 61 Revisited is the obvious choice for this
list because it is perhaps Dylan at his most intense, bold,
and daring. It is, essentially, Dylan at his most "punk".
Having just "gone electric", Highway 61 was
both influenced by, and influential to, rock music, and it's
perhaps his first album that can unreservedly be considered
"rock". The album represents Dylan's mid-60s transition
from folkie outsider to gritty, unashamed rock icon, and it
features such classics as "Like a Rolling Stone"
and "Queen Jane Approximately", which would soon
become garage band staples. Highway 61 was a turning
point both in Dylan's and every other musician's careers,
and this CD revision is long overdue.
6. The Free Design
Kites are Fun
(Light in the Attic 2003)
http://www.thefreedesign.com/
The Free Design was made up of siblings Chris,
Bruce, and Sandy Dedrick, whose heavenly harmonies and polished
songwriting made the group's records some of the most charming
soft pop discs of the era, easily on par with such groups
as The Beach Boys and The Association. The Free Design's debut
single, the innocent, weightless "Kites are Fun",
just missed the Billboard Hot 100 when released in 1967. Sadly,
it proved to be their nearest stab at success, and the group's
other singles and albums were not very successful, despite
their unquestionable quality. In the decades that followed,
however, the Free Design's music was rediscovered, and the
group has received a lot of interest in recent years after
modern artists like Beck and Stereolab have cited their admiration
for the Free Design's work. Until 2003 when the new label
Light in the Attic reissued this (their first album) and the
group's third album Heaven/Earth, CD reissues of the
group's original albums were only available as pricey Japanese
imports. Light in the Attic has finally made the Free Design's
music available on domestic CDs, and these two releases are
just the beginning of what the label promises is an entire
reissue campaign of the Free Design's recorded catalog.
7. The Count Five
Psychotic Revelation: The Ultimate Count Five
(Big Beat 2003)
http://www.acerecords.co.uk/gotrt/jun03/cdwikd230.html
Every garage head knows the story of the
Count Five: the five teenagers from San Jose who had a smash
hit, gave up a million dollars worth of bookings to go back
to school, and became known as the proverbial one hit wonders.
That one hit, of course, is the incomparable "Psychotic
Reaction," which made the Billboard's Top 5 in 1966 and
basically defined the garage rock genre in its three minutes
and five seconds. The Count Five's recorded material has been
released on CD several times by several different labels,
none of which have done a particularly good job of it. Until
now, that is. This new release from Big Beat certainly lives
up to its name, and one can safely say that this is the last
and only Count Five CD which anybody will need to buy. It
is indeed the ultimate. It features the group's recordings
in their original mono-not the badly rechanneled stereo that
was the norm of past releases-and supplements the group's
original releases with some tasty unreleased recordings, including
the original, unedited version of "Psychotic Reaction".
Psychotic Revelation is absolutely essential for any
garage fan, and it finally does justice to the group's recordings,
which have never sounded as good or been as enjoyable as on
this CD.
8. Skip Bifferty
The Story of Skip Bifferty
(Castle/Sanctuary 2003)
http://www.alexgitlin.com/npp/skipb.htm
Skip Bifferty was one of London's best-loved
underground bands during the Summer of Love, and their records,
although not successful in the hit parade, have nevertheless
become revered as some of the greatest examples of UK underground
psychedelic pop. Their eponymous RCA album (which was made
with the assistance of Small Faces Ronnie Lane and Steve Marriott)
has been reissued on CD before, but this new release from
Sanctuary Records ups the ante by supplementing the original
album with a wealth of additional material by the group. The
Story of Skip Bifferty includes rare non-LP single releases,
early demos, BBC radio sessions, and songs released by the
band under the names Heavy Jelly and Griffin. Story
more than doubles the original album with its two CD's of
material, and it certainly seems like the definitive release
by Skip Bifferty.
9. The Rose Garden
(Self-Titled)
(Collectors' Choice 2003)
http://www.electricearl.com/dawson/rosegarden.html
The Rose Garden came together in Los Angeles
in 1967, and were soon signed to Atco Records. The group's
music was an excellent blend of Byrds-ian folk rock and West
Coast sunshine pop, and their big break came quickly, as their
debut single "Next Plane to London" made #17 in
Billboard's Top 40. Their self-titled album included their
hit, as well as some other notable songs, including Bob Dylan's
"She Belongs to Me" and two numbers penned by Gene
Clark: "Till Today" and "Long Time". With
its chiming folk-rock guitars and pleasant vocal harmonies,
the album was a nice collection of enjoyable, breezy folk
pop. This CD from Collectors' Choice is the first reissue
of the album, and although Collectors' Choice can be faulted
for not including the band's non-LP single "If My World
Falls Through"/"Here's Today", it's still nice
to finally have this very pleasant sunshine pop album available
on CD.
10. Them
Now and Them
(Rev-Ola 2003)
http://www.harbour.sfu.ca/~hayward/van/discography/themnow.html
Belfast's Them were formed by the legendary
Van Morrison in 1964, and his trademark vocals can be heard
on all of their big mid-60s hits, including "Mystic Eyes",
"Baby, Please Don't Go", "Gloria", and
"Here Comes the Night". Indeed, the group was often
billed as "Them featuring Van Morrison". So what
happens when Morrison leaves the band to go solo? As it happened,
the remaining members of Them permanently located themselves
in California, won a record contract with Tower Records, and
soldiered on without Van. Although a fair comparison between
the Van-era Them and the later, Tower-era Them is probably
impossible simply considering how different the group's two
incarnations were, the group's latter-day material has an
indubitable quality of its own, and some psychedelic fans
swear that Them made some of their best records without Van.
Now and Them was their first album after Morison's
departure and their Tower debut, and it shows the band coping
and evolving at the same time. The Rev-Ola reissue is the
first legitimate CD release of the album, and Rev-Ola has
also released Them's second Tower album Time Out! Time
in for Them as well as a CD of some rare material that
the group recorded as The Belfast Gypsies. All are valuable
reissues.
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
11. The Raik's Progress
Sewer Rat Love Chant
(Sundazed 2003)
http://www.sundazed.com/artists/raiksprogress.html
This recent CD from Sundazed is representative
of what the good people at Sundazed have made themselves known
for: making an entire CD-and a pretty darn good one, at that-for
a band that only released a single or two. The Raik's Progress
came from Fresno, CA, and their only single, the stunning
"Why Did You Rob Us, Tank?"/"Sewer Rat Love
Chant" was released on Liberty Records in 1967. Sewer
Rat Love Chant adds ten tracks of value to these original
two, making for a pretty interesting and enjoyable CD.
12. The Sonics
Psycho-Sonic
(Big Beat 2003)
http://www.acerecords.co.uk/gotrt/july03/cdwikd115.html
Big Beat released their original Psycho-Sonic
CD in 1993, which was notable for including all of the celebrated
group's Etiquette recordings in a nice package. Recently,
Big Beat has totally revised and redone Psycho-Sonic,
upgrading the CD significantly in terms of sound quality in
light of the group's original master tapes being recently
discovered. The packaging has also received an overhaul, most
notably the liner notes by Alec Palao, which feature new interviews
with original Sonics members. Kudos to Big Beat for revising
a popular release and making it stronger!
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