Once more, what the title says…. A few odd tunes from the 1950s to the 1980s. Some are peculiar/insane cover versions, some are songs you wouldn’t expect from a certain artist, and the rest are just… rather odd!
Just a few words about some of the artists on this mix:
With the onset of psychedelia in the mid 60s, a few well known acts jumped on the bandwagon with usually peculiar results, or in the case of The Four Seasons (mostly known for songs such as Big Girls Don’t Cry) releasing an unheralded masterpiece of an album, called “The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette”. I thought it fitting to end this volume with one of the finest tracks from that album. The Everly Brothers made a couple of attempts at psychedelia, and the track featured here, if you removed the brass and bongos (insane bongos!) could easily be mistaken for a mid 60s lost classic from The Byrds. Howlin’ Wolf was another unlikely artist to take on psychedelia, but you just need to hear the acid drenched revisions of some of his blues classics on the album he recorded in 1969 with Rotary Connection backing him. Also featured is probably one of the earliest “psych” recordings, a track from the Alan Watts album “This is It”, from 1962.
Away from the psych phenomenon I’ve featured a track from the actor Robert Mitchum’s calypso album from the late 50s, and keeping with the actors recording albums theme a song from Peter Wyngarde’s solo release in 1970, a quite bizarre album where he daren’t sing on, so just spoke to us in his most “seductive” voice. I purposely avoided putting on the track “Rape” from this album, which it’s probably most infamous for and why a reissue of it was cancelled quite recently.
A peculiarity is the song by Dib Cochran & The Earwigs, who released the one single back in 1970. In reality this was Marc Bolan and Tony Visconti (on lead vocals) in disguise, and the song could easily have been a big hit if released in the mid 70s as disco took off. Now we come to Jon Wayne, and no it isn’t the actor. I remember coming across, and buying, this album in the mid 80s, and it remains one of the most hilarious albums I’ve ever heard. The best way I could describe the sound is “country slop”. One reviewer remarked on it as “a hideous, drunken, sloppy mess that grafts the musicality of Merle Haggard etc onto a very loose/chaotic California punk sound. If that sounds like a bad combination…you’re right. It is.”
I may write some more about the acts featured on this latest volume, but for now I hope you enjoy!
1. Lieutenant Pigeon – Opus 300 (2:08)
2. The Everly Brothers – Mary Jane (2:57)
3. Jon Wayne – Texas Jailcell (3:12)
4. Chubby Checker – Autobahn Baby (1:56)
5. Peter Wyngarde – The Way I Cry Over You (3:28)
6. Kevin Ayers and The Whole World – Hat (5:27)
7. Sroeng Santi – Kuen Kuen Lueng Lueng (3:32)
8. The Kaplan Brothers – Happy (4:31)
9. Robert Mitchum – Mama Looka Boo Boo (Shut You Mouth-Go Away) (2:53)
10. Rajput & The Sepoy Mutiny – Up, Up & Away (2:11)
11. Bruce Haack – Cherubic Hymn (2:16)
12. Armand Schaubroeck Steals – Ratfucker (3:47)
13. Dib Cochran & The Earwigs – Oh Baby (2:46)
14. Mystery Artist – Mystery Track (0:59)
15. Rita Lee – Frique Comigo (3:23)
16. Ivor Cutler – Go and Sit Upon the Grass (2:06)
17. Howlin’ Wolf – Smokestack Lightning (3:54)
18. Stud Cole – The Devil’s Comin’ (2:18)
19. R. Stevie Moore – Ditch Me (1:39)
20. Oho – Pale Hippo (1:48)
21. Moondog – Wine, Woman and Song (2:22)
22. Alan Watts – Love You (3:05)
23. Eden Ahbez – Eden’s Cove (2:39)
24. David Hemmings – Talkin’ L.A. (7:16)
25. The Four Seasons – Genuine Imitation Life (6:16)