Second album of spaced out cosmic rock from Dr Phibes , my favourite "shoulda been massive" group, released in 1993 and just as good as thier storming debut.Keeping it short 'n' sweet on this one , check out previous posts for more info ,debut and Glastonbury 93 boot ( link now working again along with the link to Rockabilly Psychosis And The Garage Disease)
A bit late for this but some wise words from the old rogue ......"Be childish. Be irresponsible. Be disrespectful. Be everything this society hates" or the more well known and usefull, "You only get cash from chaos"
Hunting through local charity shops for vinyl,CDs and tapes the chances of finding anything interesting seem to be becoming increasingly rare lately, although it seems if you're after The Stereophonics or many other Brit Pop also-rans you will hit the mother lode . Now and again if the stars are aligned correctly I get lucky with something like this gem buried in a local Oxfam shop for £1.00 and which I thought would post up here.
My knowledge of Jazz stretches to hearing a teeny bit of Miles Davis and recognizing the names of some of the main players and thats about it so "Journey In Satchidananda" was ,as well as a bargain, a bit of a revelation. These 37 minutes of "cosmic psychedelic trancendental jazz" was first released by Alice Coltrane , the wife of John Coltrane, in 1970 . All four tracks have a sort of hypnotic drone thing going on provided by a tamboura in the background accompanied by oud, saxophone (Pharoah Saunders),bass,drums,bells,tambourine and harp and piano, both of these played by Alice Coltrane. This is not freeform type jazz with weird ,odd time signatures and obscure musical scales or bland noodling lounge jazz ( my previous views on jazz) but should be way easy to get into if you have open mind 'n' ears. At the same time also picked up a Herbie Hancock CD, "Crossroads", which is just as good so may up that at a later date. Any recommendations on a similar trip,send this way.
"I hope this album will be a form of meditation and a spiritual awakening for those who listen with their inner ear.Om shanti." - Alice Coltrane (from sleeve notes) .HERE.
Anyone for some psychedelic funk/soul accompanied by bagpipes,yodeling,harps, jews harp,steel guitars,doo-wop,choirs and the genius of Eddie Hazel ? This is an early 90s' issue of Parliament's debut album "Osmium" with three non album singles added and renamed for some strange reason "Rhenium". "Osmium" was not surprisingly ignored on release in 1970 and has since been sampled to death by De La Soul and others.Although often labeled as a funk classic this skips across so many genres its beyond labeling and it doesn't ever sound like a band trying out different badly fitting outfits as it all works well together,retaining a sort of playful feel throughout probably due to the production of George Clinton .
Hard to pick highlights as I love it all even the ,probably intentionally, dumb nursery rhyme lyrics to "Funky Woman" - sample - "She threw them in the sink , the sink began to stink ....... Funky Woman " and "She threw them in the air , the air said this ain't fair"....... Funky Woman" all with church organ and some mean guitar playing. It even has a sort of come down track at the end, "The Silent Boatman" ,this is the one with the bagpipes.
Remembered reading glowing reviews in the music mags for this slice of psychedelia upon its release in 1990.Probably mentally put it on a list of "wants" , a lot harder in those days tracking down all that vinyl,Cd's and tapes you just had to have ,involving actually having to go outside and stepping foot in a shop if you couldn't get it on mail order, if you had the loot that is .Stumbled across a link for it earlier last year and finally got round to actually hearing it and realised I had made a BIG mistake in choosing to buy something like a Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine or a Lush album over this .Track names like "Exploding In Your Mind" and "Magic Flight" give a good indication of the sounds contained within . Although the whole album sounds as though it has been steeped in Hoffman's finest ,which is absolutely fine by me , it's still shot through with incredible guitar playing courtesy of Gary Ramon.Veering from a touch of the old fuzzbox to wah wah style wigouts to soothing reverby acoustic and to these ears I'm sure I can detect a bit of trash/garage thrown in too. A real gem this one and regret not making a note of the blog I got it from . Have also found out from Wiki here that they have a new album out later this year also coinciding with the reissue of previous releases , hope they tour as well . Microdots at the ready and Other Way Out here. And then buy the reissues or this or maybe this.
Been meaning to re-upload this for sometime, was available through Last FM page but link has expired . Anyway here is Dr. Phibes' performance from Glastonbury '93 where they had a large "Dr. Phibes" balloon hovering over the festival for the duration of most of the festival (Im sure there is a story about it losing it's mooring and causing chaos at higher altitudes above the site to a plane or hopefully a police helicopter).I did go that year but got sort of distracted and missed them , as you do or did at Glastonbury , but managed to pick up a C90 of the set the next day . Audience recording but still very much worth a listen . Apologies in advance as I'm not 100% on the correct track-listing and also for the piss poor knocked out "cover" ,novice at photoshop/image type software, feel free to make a better one and send it to me.Check out wiki and first post for more on the "should of been massive" and seriously under appreciated Dr. Phibes & The House Of Wax Equations. Glasto '93 here.
Thanks to Keith for these links to some quality French broadcast recordings .
Hawkwind seem like Britain's harder edged version of the Grateful Dead who still attract a loyal following to this day of travellers,hippies,punks,freaks,heads,ravers,metalheads or just about anyone atrracted to a bit of good old psychedelic space rock . My favourite Hawkwind album , a near classic in my opinion and strangely never been given the big remastered treatment as have their other albums from the 70s' .Only had a brief CD release in the late 90s' which now seem to go for silly money . A great review on Julian Cope's site Head Heritage gives a much better view on this album than I ever can ....
"This album was Hawkwind’s most polished at the time, and one that would signal the abrupt end of the group’s tenure on UA, which was a pity. But this sixth and final album (discounting the contract-fulfilling, cross-faded “Roadhawks” compilation) was where Hawkwind’s initial burst of space-metal punk blur-outs joined at the hips with druggie busking would be in full force for the final time as pan-galactic mystery tunes are interspersed between nocturnal instrumental bridges. Lead guitarist Dave Brock was on a total songwriting high as “Warrior” held three of his stupendous psychedelic traumas in the shape of both sides’ respective openers: “Assault And Battery”/“Golden Void” on side one and “Magnu” on side two.
Hawkwind’s personnel lineup had always differed wildly from album to album, and “Warrior On The Edge Of Time” was no exception. ‘Speculative fiction’ author Michael Moorcock was brought in to fulfill a less-crazier Robert Calvert spoken word role, and was an excellent choice as it was he who previously collaborated with the band with his written piece “Sonic Attack.” A second drummer, ex-Chicken Shack skinsman Alan Powell was added on drums alongside Simon King, while keyboardist Simon House had already been integrating more keyboards (and occasional treated violin runs) than ever before into Hawkwind for the past year, evolving their sound into one verging on precision. And an equally precise Lemmy Thunderbird bass line opens “Assault And Battery” over mellotron washes followed up by the double drumming kick in and the ever-changeless, over amplified Dave Brock power strum as his vocals proceed to rip off Longfellow with the nonetheless great line “Lives of great men are reminders/We may make our lives sublime…” over Nik Turner’s weaving flute melodies. But the whole thing is a gigantic WALL of sound that pushes further and further on into time, only breaking for the chorus where it remain a wall, but only a slightly higher one for Brock’s just lurched into another chord. It runs immediately into the Bardo-weaving “The Golden Void” as the mellotron curtain is parted with what initially sounds for all the world a piercing mid-seventies Moog oscillation when in fact it is Simon House’s screeching violin through multiple phase and delay units. The churning musical mess has still lingered from “Assault And Battery” but slowed down into a trudging out-of-bodiness as Brock intones a reappearing “corridor of flame” as all backing instrumentation melts into the background with super-slowed tempo that is steady and altogether tripped out. Then the great build towards the finish with even more unleashed Brock power-strums through the biggest psychedelic amp he still owned and Nik Turner enters the fray in the coda with a “feel” solo on sax that absolutely surpasses his own complete lack of expertise with a beautifully-parped passage evocative of the journey to come: which does soon enough with the first of three spoken links.
“The Wizard Blew His Horn” is all echoed vocals with synthesizer and drums resigned to essentially what amounts to haunted house effects in the background. The phased and bashed cymbals carry over his cries for “a champion… CHAMPION… CHAMPION…” crossfading just before Hammer Horror time into “Opa Loka” -- an instrumental whose title is taken, perplexingly enough, from a town in Florida (albeit misspelled) and not some mythical planet that ties in with the vague Moorcock conceptual story line. But something else it most definitely is, is a totally NEU!-driven instrumental with linear pacing and a feel like a more spaced-out and organic relation of “E-Musik.” And it continues with all the directness of NEU! as a veritable gallery of synthesizer soundscapes pass overhead. “The Demented Man” ends side one, a lugubrious Brock acoustic and drum-less ballad as seagulls wheel and cry and mellotrons reinforce the whole “We Took The Wrong Step Years Ago” 12-string styled rumination.
Brock’s other side is reflected in side two’s kick off, “Magnu.” Rain and wind beat against the Hawklords as that Brock riff from not only side one but EVERY previous Hawkwind album continues on over a lesser-NEU! groove that opens up a path for synthesizer and then violin outlays with a loosely squonked sax rhythm. But the tracks begins to spiral slowly out of control and into a tornado funnel as the brutal repetition trance out of the groove continues for so long that the vocals begin to draw into a black hole of backwards echo, turning the chorus into a into a mesmerising trance that gently begins to bend pitch, speed and shape the further the track proceeds forward. The chorus is great: although it’s completely indecipherable even before its metamorphosis into the phased, phased guitar overdubs and unrelenting skittering, echoed violin vamping through far too many effects extends into the next dimension. The crossfading continues into the Nik Turner echoed-vox a lot intonation of “Standing At The Edge,” which goes into the Simon House instrumental “Spiral Galaxy 28948” (the numeral date being House’s birthday) like a Moog passage meeting the Allman Brothers in a cosmic roller-rink. This then blurs out to “Warriors,” the last spoken piece heavy on dramatic tympani and distorted vocals pronouncements from Moorcock. “Dying Seas” is an equilibrium-threatening track that opens with Lemmy’s solo sludge-funking bass that pound through Nik Turner’s phased, echoed vocals as the two drummers crash out a beat too simple for one drummer, but it only adds to the disorientation of it all. And Turner proceeds to throw another free-sax freak out at the fade. “Kings Of Speed” hurries up the end of the album with opening bass/drums/guitar walloping and a totally uncalled for synthesizer WHOOOOOOSH that signals a return to their previous quick-paced songs, this time with near-Johnny Thundering plectrum exercises and Simon House hoedowning for all it’s worth in the middle bridge. Brock’s vocals return, now echoing backwards. It’s a mindless street anthem/football chant mess and an all-too-well-earned self-coronation of amphetamine abuse.
Sadly, this selfsame substance would lead to a Canadian bust that saw Lemmy sacked and Hawkwind immediately reduced to sub-cosmic debris. Try as one may, the following two albums for Charisma -- even with the inclusion of Paul Rudolph on able-bodied bass -- pale greatly besides their six years of recording for United Artists. But beyond this?
This bunch were "The Next Big Thing "of 86/87 and much lauded by the music press at the time . Gaye Bykers On Acid were lumped in the music journo created "Grebo" scene along with Crazyhead ,Zodiac Mindwarp & The Love Reaction,Pop Will Eat Itself and a few others long forgotten by me. Long hair,biker gear,spraypaint,effects pedals,patchouli oil,drum machines,samplers along with a hint of narcotic allsorts seemed to be some of the elements in the make up of this very brief lived genre.After a couple of indie eps GBOA were signed to Virgin Records in 1987 ,to much expectation. Unfortunately when the debut album (and accompanying movie !) "Drill Your Own Hole" came out it was almost underwhelming after the hype the band successfully generated. Dominated by drum machines , wah wah guitar and samples the album still comes across as gimmicky in places but Git Down , After Suck There's Blow and T.V Cabbage are worthy of a place on anyones alternative 80s' playlist.The next album in 1989s' "Stewed To The Gills" was a a major improvement but it was too late for Virgin and the band were dropped due to poor sales. Two more albums were released on thier own label before before splitting in the early 1990s'. Style over substance ? Dunno but they sure brightened up the dull and over earnest mid to late 80s' indie scene before the rise of Madchester.Some of it still sounds ok to me ,the mentioned tracks from the debut , Nosedive Karma ,Everythang's Groovy and most of Stewed To The Gills are all worth a listen. May post these tunes at a later date in the meantime here is the debut to start with .
This three piece hailing from the north west were often compared,rather obviously ,with The Jimi Hendrix Experience .Two white guys on bass and drums,Lee Belsham and Keith York, fronted by a black guy,Howard King Jr, playing dynamic lead guitar laden with effects and feedback as if in a wild jamming session.Although lumped in with the indie scene of the time there was much more to this unique band as suggested by supporting Hawkwind , Killing Joke and Spiritualized which acknowledges their heavy ,tripped out psychedelic edge.They gigged extensively throughout the early 90s along with two appearances at Glastonbury gaining a good live reputation .I have regretted not seeing them since as I very much doubt we will hear from them again as tragically Howard King Jr is currently serving time at her majesty's pleasure after being found guilty of murder in 1997 .The debut album Whirlpool was released in 1991 and was followed by a handful of e.ps along with their last album Hypnotwister in 1993. All their recorded output is worth tracking down along with Peel and Mark Radcliffe sessions and a live Glastonbury bootleg. Click here for the brilliant debut.
Another music blog pissing in the wind with a selection of sounds given a spin to on any one particular fine day while gazing out of the loft window onto the mega city below .Hope you can join me too.Anything goes sound wise , although if your looking for the latest "hits" to hoover up for free to add to a never listened to itunes library this probably ain't the place for you.All other music lovers most welcome and hope you find something to groove to, as I have on some of the prolific and interesting blogs that are out there.
If you download the music from the links provided and find you dig the groovy sounds man you can do the right thing and support the artists by maybe buying thier CDs,product etc.If you don't like the music just delete it from your computer and try something else.
.jpg)
