Paisley Underground Series, #28: 28th Day- The Complete Recordings (2003) MP3 & FLAC

"You sing a song of love and crucify all the words. You pray to god for hope
when all the while, you're going backwards."

Hailing from Chico, a small Northern California college-town that was one of the lesser-known corners of the eighties-era paisley scene, 28th Day was several cuts above the plethora of neo-psych and Jangle-Pop bands that then littered the landscape, as they featured Cole Marquis' darkly evocative guitar-work (reminiscent of Karl Precoda of The Dream Syndicate) and a young Barbara Manning who would later go on to become a well-loved and semi-legendary fixture on the S.F. music scene. While 28th Day was fated to only remain together long enough to release a self-titled mini-album on Enigma Records (produced by Russ Tolman of True West), in doing so, they managed to leave behind what is simultaneously one of the best neo-psych albums of the eighties, and one of the most under-appreciated albums associated (albeit marginally) with the paisley movement. 28th Day was Manning's first tour of duty in a band and Marquis was not much more than a neophyte himself as they set about searching for their distinctively folky, post-punky, psych-drenched sound. Marquis: "We were so green in the beginning, we could hardly play, but we all believed in what we were doing. We were having fun, and we didn't hold anything back. We made up for the lack of skill with energy, fear, alcohol and faith." What skill deficiencies the band may have had at the time seem completely irrelevant on songs such as "25 Pills," the lead track on 28th Day, a somber Jangle-Pop gem about drug addiction that pushes close to the brand of melancholia that Joy Division specialized in. And then there's the beautiful "Burnsite," featuring Marquis and Manning's hauntingly intertwined vocals and a paranoia-inducing arrangement (including screams from Manning) that it occasionally reminiscent of David Roback's Opal. Nevertheless, what sets 28th Day apart is their ability to mix in a song such as "Lost," a folky garage-rocker that should have become a paisley anthem, but instead was fated, like the band itself, to footnote status. Manning: "How Do I explain it? We were very young. It was our first band. We thought we were the best band in the world. We started to hate each other. Isn't it only natural?"

Mo-Dettes- "White Mice" Video (1979)

Not as well-known as The Slits or The Raincoats, the Mo-Dettes were founded by Kate Korus who was a veteran of both bands. In contrast to these, the Mo-Dettes featured a punky psych-pop sound that anticipated everything from The Go-Gos to The Pandoras to The Vivian Girls, but their sound also had that early Punk vibe that their followers could never hope to equal.

W1dowspe@k- S/T (2011) / Harsh Realm EP (2011) / Gunshy EP (2011) MP3 & FLAC

"An empty home, a vacant hell. I knew you in the harsh realm."

It is sobering to realize that it has now been a decade and a half since Mazzy Star's last release, Among My Swan, and though the ensuing years have brought many attempts to replicate their narcotic brand of bluesy psych-folk, none have been able to convincingly capture the alluring darkness that characterized the collaboration between David Roback and Hope Sandoval. The closest, in my estimation, was Miranda Lee Richards' brief stint in The Brian Jonestown Massacre, which yielded some brilliant, sleepy psych-folk such as "Reign On" from the Bringing It All Back Home Again EP; however, that was before I had heard Widowspeak, who appeared on the scene in early 2011 with their single "Harsh Realm," a deliciously sullen bit of Mazzy-worthy navel-gazing dressed in heavily-reverbed fifties-style paranoia, which was reportedly recorded after having only played six shows together as a unit. A Brooklyn trio with roots in the Pacific Northwest, Widowspeak belie these origins by conjuring a Southern California Paisley vibe, while giving it their own twist by cutting it with the kind of fifties and early-sixties musical references that would make David Lynch proud, as well as introducing a subtle but gritty Garage-Rock element, both of which lend Widowspeak a bit more sonic variation than what can be found in the iconic sound of their obvious main influence.

Lead-singer and rhythm guitarist Molly Hamilton:

"I think during the first practice, in my apartment, we talked about the 50′s- Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, early Elvis, and we initially wanted the band to have that sound. I don’t think that happened, but that first practice was cool because all of our weird obsessions came out. Michael and I share an encyclopedic knowledge of the grunge era because of our Northwest upbringings, as well as a love for the Sonics and 60′s garage. Rob’s more into the 70′s, Television and the Stones. Rob and I love Pavement, but Michael is crazy and prefers Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks.  We all dig the Velvet Underground.  I also listen to a lot of really old country and blues and 90′s pop music. We cover “Wicked Game,” but we’ve also talked about covering the Cranberries and the Carter Family, if that says anything about how weird our influences are."

While it is the band's memorable cover of Chris Isaak's classic David Lynch-inspired slow-burner "Wicked Game" that has created much of the buzz surrounding Widowspeak in the early-going, it is actually their beautifully crestfallen self-titled debut album that is most deserving of attention. Admittedly, throughout the course of the album, the ghost of Mazzy Star is almost always within earshot (especially in relation to the lead vocals); however, Molly Hamilton, Michael Stasiak and Robert Earl Thomas never succumb to pure tributary. Instead, by deftly integrating a range of distinguishing influences and emotions, Widowspeak  is able to stake out its own sonic territory, thus earning the right to be heard on its own terms. The lead track, "Puritan," is a case in point; while for much of the song, Hamilton seems to be channeling Hope Sandoval to an uncanny degree, she also occasionally adds unpredictable phrasings to her vocals that lend the song a distinctly non-Mazzy glimmer of emotional lightness. This, coupled with Thomas' Morricone meets surf-rock guitar-style, allows Widowspeak to offer up a glimpse of what might make them truly unique down the road. Likewise, on their second single, "Gun Shy," the band adopts a more upbeat, hook-filled approach, thus finally providing Hamilton with a vehicle for transcending the chorus of Sandoval comparisons, something she takes advantage of to great affect. At first blush, it is tempting to embrace Widowspeak simply for softening the sting associated with Mazzy Star's sixteen years of silence, but on closer inspection, the quality of the songs and the album's range of material both suggest that Widowspeak have more on their minds than playing the role of pysch-folk surrogates.

Widowspeak- "Ghost Boy" (2011) Live @ 285 Kent Ave.

Yeah, I know it sounds a lot like Mazzy Star, but since they have gone into permanent hibernation despite periodic rumors to the contrary, Widowspeak is a capable substitute with a few sonic wrinkles of their own...

Velvet Underground Series, #3: The Velvet Underground & Nico- Psychedelic Sounds from the Gymnasium (2008) / All Tomorrow's Parties: Remembering The Velvet Underground (1996) MP3 & FLAC

"I'm searching for my mainline. I couldn't hit it sideways. I couldn't hit it sideways,
just like Sister Ray says."

Andy Warhol's "Exploding Plastic Inevitable" (originally called the "Irrupting Plastic Inevitable") debuted in early April 1966 at the Open Stage, a ballroom located above the Dom Bar & Restaurant in New York City's East Village, which Warhol had rented and turned into a makeshift nightclub. Early the following year, the son of the Polish owner of the restaurant approached Warhol about opening a new club on East 71st Street called The Gymnasium in a space that had originally housed a Czechoslovakian fitness & social club and that was still filled with old gym equipment. Not unpredictably, Warhol, whose plan was to create "New York's most happening discotheque," decided to leave the equipment in the club for his patrons to use if they felt so inclined. As can be imagined, the cavernous Gymnasium was not an ideal place to play a gig; however, during the club's tenuous existence (it was in a poor location and Warhol did not have an exclusive lease), Warhol was able to attract a number of bands/musicians to play there in addition to his "proteges," The Velvet Underground, who held residency at The Gymnasium during the club's first month, more or less using the gigs to fine tune their live act for the "Exploding Plastic Inevitable" (which they would play for the final time the following month). On April 30th, which was the last night of The Velvets' residency, the opening band included future Blondie guitarist Chris Stein (then a teenager): "We hung around for a little while and they played records, then we headed up for the stage. It was a big echoey place; we had absolutely no conception of playing a place like this whatsoever, but Maureen Tucker said we could use their equipment. So we plugged into their amps and the amps were all cranked up superloud [....] We must have played five or six songs and then we just gave up. By that time, the rest of The Velvets had arrived. After a while they started to play and they were like awesomely powerful [....] I was really disappointed that they didn't have Nico, because we thought she was the lead singer, but I distinctly remember the violin and their doing "Venus in Furs" because a couple of people in dark outfits got up and started doing a slow dance with a chain in between them. There were maybe thirty people there. It was very late, but it was a memorable experience."

The final night of The Velvets' residency at The Gymnasium was billed as "National Swingers Night," and at some point the fateful decision was made to capture the band's performance on reel-to-reel tape, which was a very uncommon occurrence during The Velvets' association with Warhol; what's even more surprising is that the parties concerned decided to do so in the absence of the band's "chanteuse," Nico, who had not returned from a trip to Ibiza. Psychedelic Sounds from The Gymnasium features this reel-to-reel recording (though there is some disagreement over whether it is the complete performance), and it is, quite possibly, the most important "unofficial" Velvet Underground recording in existence. This is due not only to the historic value of the recording and its surprising sonic clarity, but also to the performances, including a song that appears nowhere else in The Velvet's official and unofficial discographies: "I'm Not a Young Man Anymore." Listening to Reed's spidery guitar figure and his dark, mantra-like vocals, it's hard not to wonder how the song was never recorded in the studio, as it is easily the equal of a number of songs from both The Velvet Underground & Nico  and White Light / White Heat. Another gem is the first public performance of the epic "Sister Ray," whose crunchy guitar groove likely inspired Stein's description of the band that night as "awesomely powerful." Psychedelic Sounds from the Gymnasium captures The Velvet Underground at their grimy, arty best and makes pointedly clear what set this band apart both musically and lyrically. John Cale: "There was commitment there. That was the powerful advantage that all of Lou's lyrics had. All Bob Dylan was singing was questions- How many miles? and all that. I didn't want anymore questions. Give me some tough social situations and show that answers are possible."

Ramones- S/T (1976) MP3 & FLAC

"They're piling in the back seat, they generate steam heat, pulsating to the back beat,
the Blitzkrieg Bop."

Joey Ramone: "When we started, we were all disgusted with everything on the radio and the state of rock and all the b.s. It wasn't what we grew up with, and it wasn't what we loved and knew as rock. It wasn't Elvis and it wasn't the '60s, the revolutionary time in the history of rock 'n' roll when so many different styles and things went down and were accepted. Even The Trashmen were accepted. There was the psychedelic thing and T. Rex. In the early '70s there were The Stooges and Elevator, but after '73 or so there was nothing but disco shit, even heavy metal had a corporate sound [....] Everything was safe." While it wouldn't be accurate to say the Ramones "invented" Punk, as there were certainly precursors who had a hand in creating the template for the Punk sound such as the aforementioned Trashmen, The Stooges, MC5, The Velvet Underground, The New York Dolls and others, it is accurate to say that the Ramones were the first band to take the D.I.Y. approach of mid-sixties Garage-Rock to an entirely new level by stripping the music down to its primal components: three guitar chords, relentless tempo, a basic melody and a fuck-all attitude. Tommy Ramone: "By 1973, I knew that what was needed was some pure, stripped down, no bullshit rock 'n' roll." Hailing from a middle-class neighborhood in Queens, New York, the original members of the Ramones had dabbled in high-school garage bands for years before forming the band in 1974 and soon thereafter began playing clubs such as CBGB, which were quickly becoming a catalyst for a new underground music scene that, by the end of the decade, would change the face of rock music. Punk Magazine co-founder "Legs" McNeil: "They were all wearing these black leather jackets. And they counted off this song. And they started playing different songs, and it was just this wall of noise [...] they looked so striking. These guys were not hippies. This was something completely new." By 1975, the Ramones were the darlings of the New York underground music press, something that eventually brought them to the attention of Sire Records owner Seymour Stein: "I saw nothing punk in the Ramones. I saw a great band. To me they were a bit influenced by ABBA and Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys. Sure they were quite unique [...] they wanna be called punk that's fine, but they were a great band." After auditioning for Stein and subsequently signing with Sire, the Ramones set about recording their eponymous debut LP, which, despite being recorded in less than a week on a budget of not much more than $6000, turned out to be a game-changer. Ramones begins with the band in full throttle until Joey Ramone's voice leaps into the mix chanting the famous line, "Hey, ho, let's go!," that kick-starts the band's anthemic "call-to arms," "Blitzkrieg Bop." While it's nearly impossible to hear this song the way it must have sounded in the dire musical context of 1976, it is clear that the Ramones, by taking a basic pre-British invasion rock sound and pushing the tempo and delivery into hyper-gear, created something unprecedented. While the simplistic lyrics wouldn't be out of place in the mouths of a '50s-era frat party band, Joey Ramone's aggressive yet abbreviated delivery and the band's relentless I-IV-V thrash behind him lays down an aesthetic blueprint that would pretty much remain unchanged, even in the context of hardcore Punk. While more or less ignored commercially in the U.S., the Ramones, as a result of their July tour of England in 1976, exercised an incalculable influence on the music revolution that was beginning to take hold in the U.K. at the time. Joey Ramone: "We were attracting all this royalty and all the people who would later become The Sex Pistols and the rest. They came to the sound check and told us they formed their bands after hearing our album. When we left England, the whole British punk scene kicked off."

Ramones- Live at the Rainbow Theatre, London, UK, Dec. 31, 1977

The Ramones were a Punk band even before there was a name for such a thing, and although they weren't the only precursors to the UK Punk movement of the late seventies, few bands wielded as big of an influence on that revolutionary music scene. The following are excerpts from the Ramones' legendary UK concert on New Year's Eve 1977. Hey Ho, let's go!

Note:  For a full frontal aural assault, play all three clips simultaneously at maximum volume ;)

Velvet Underground Series, #2: The Velvet Underground & Nico- S/T (1967) / The Velvet Underground & Nico Unripened: The Norman Dolph Acetate (1966) / Yesterday's Parties: Exploding Plastic Inevitable (2005) MP3 & FLAC

"I'll be your mirror, reflect what you are in case you don't know."

Simply put, The Velvet Underground & Nico was a game-changer that, over the course of four+ decades, has served as a guidebook for everything from Glam-Rock to Punk to Industrial and beyond, a deceptively unassuming album whose particular effect was best summed up in Brian Eno's famous pronouncement: "The first Velvet Underground album only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band." As the album cover suggests, the back-story of The Velvets' debut is very much about their brief stint as members of Andy Warhol's Factory, for it was through Warhol's mentoring and patronage that they were able to record (a now legendary) album that they themselves never thought would happen. However, from the beginning of their association with Warhol, there was conflict. Paul Morrissey, an avant-garde filmmaker and factory regular, convinced Warhol that The Velvets needed a more appealing lead singer, as Lou Reed was prone to appearing withdrawn and abrasive on stage. German fashion model and fledgling singer Nico, whom Warhol had used in a few of his films, most notably, Chelsea Girls, was Morrissey's recommendation to Warhol, who in turn set about convincing Reed and John Cale to accept Nico as the band's "chanteuse." Despite their hatred for the idea, Reed and Cale were eventually persuaded to not only accept Nico into the band, but to write a few songs specifically for her; being the intelligent opportunists that they were, they likely realized that being given new instruments, free rehearsal space, food, drugs, sex (of all kinds), and Warhol's pop-art cache were perks that few, if any, bands could ever dream of enjoying. Despite all this, at their first rehearsal with Nico present, the band reportedly drowned her voice in guitar noise every time she tried to sing. As Sterling Morrison once revealed, Nico was often a detrimental force within the band: "There were problems from the very beginning because there were only so many songs that were appropriate for Nico, and she wanted to sing them all [....] And she would try and do little sexual politics things in the band. Whoever seemed to be having undue influence on the course of events, you'd find Nico close by. So she went from Lou to Cale, but neither of those affairs lasted very long." Warhol's first major project involving The Velvets was a multimedia exhibition called the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, which involved the band playing in front of a silent 70 minute black & white film entitled The Velvet Underground & Nico: A Symphony of Sound.

Performing in the EPI allowed The Velvet Underground to regularly explore and indulge their interest in musical improvisation, a trait that would be put to use soon thereafter while recording their debut album. In 1966, the first step a band would typically take before recording an album was securing a recording contract. In the case of The Velvets, Warhol decided instead to finance the album himself with the help of Norman Dolph, a Columbia Records Sales Executive who hoped Columbia would ultimately agree to sign the band and distribute the record. In mid-April 1966, after much rehearsing and endlessly working on new arrangements intended to accurately reflect the innovative approach they had honed earlier that spring playing in the EPI, The Velvets entered an old, decrepit recording studio in New York City with Warhol as ostensible producer to record an acetate that would be peddled to various record companies. Lou Reed has clarified Warhol's role during the recording sessions: "Andy was the producer and Andy was in fact sitting behind the board gazing with rapt fascination at all the blinking lights. He just made it possible for us to be ourselves and go right ahead with it because he was Andy Warhol. In a sense he really produced it because he was this umbrella that absorbed all the attacks when we weren't large enough to be attacked. As a consequence of him being the producer, we'd just walk in and set up and did what we always did [....] Of course, he didn't know anything about record production, he just sat there and said, 'Oooh that's fantastic,' and the engineer would say, 'Oh yeah! Right! It is fantastic isn't it?'" Despite the austere recording conditions, The Velvets made the most of the opportunity. The result, known as the Norman Dolph Acetate, ended up being roundly rejected by Columbia who didn't feel the band had any talent (ditto Atlantic and Elektra); however Morrissey managed to sell it to Verve/MGM, who promptly decided to sit on it until the following year because they had just released another "weird" album, Freak Out  by The Mothers of Invention and weren't quite sure how to market The Velvets. The delay gave the band a chance to rerecord a few songs under better conditions in Los Angeles while on tour as part of the EPI and to record some new material (including "Sunday Morning") with Verve staff producer Tom Wilson in New York.

An often overlooked characteristic of The Velvet Underground & Nico is the album's sonic diversity. At the time, The Velvets were derogatorily referred to as an "amphetamine band"; they were especially reviled by the so-called "flower children" of the San Francisco music scene who saw the band as excessively dark and out to destroy the last shreds of rock music's innocence. For the 10,000 or so who actually bought the debut album when it was released, they were treated to a varied and uncompromising journey into the nether regions of the growing counter-cultural phenomenon. Not surprisingly, drug-culture steps forth front and center in the form of the album's then-scandalous centerpiece, "Heroin," which features some of Reed's most brilliant lyrics, equally evocative of a love-letter and a suicide note to the song's namesake. In addition, the song's slowly building dynamic mimics the effect of heroin as it hits the bloodstream, thus lending even more emotive power to the lyrics. On "I'm Waiting for the Man," Reed's lyrics treat the listener to the other, even darker side of heroin addiction: the perpetual need to score more skag: "I'm feeling good feeling so fine, until tomorrow but that's just some more time." The song's grimy, staccato feel provides a powerful counterpoint to the dreamy insularity of "Heroin." Much to her chagrin to be sure, Nico ended up with only three songs on the album, all of which are gorgeously off-center due to her singular vocal style. The album is at its most innovative and confrontational on the more avant-garde songs such as "Venus in Furs" and "The Black Angel's Death Song," both of which make heavy use of Cale's haunting electric viola. Not long after the release of the album, the relationship between Warhol and The Velvets began to badly deteriorate due to contractual issues relating to the distribution of album royalties as well as Warhol's decision to focus (again, at the urging of Morrissey) on Nico's solo career. In hindsight, The Velvet Underground & Nico can be viewed as an early death-knell of the hippie movement; as such, it is an abrasively avant-garde, unprecedentedly literate, unflinching existential journey into the dark soul of the sixties, while simultaneously functioning as a harbinger of nearly every underground music scene that has followed in its wake.

Andy Warhol's Exploding Fantastic Inevitable Featuring The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967)

Andy sure could throw a party. Now where did I put my whip?

Iggy Pop- "I'm Bored" (1979) Live on The Old Grey Whistle Test

just found this brilliant clip...

The Stooges- S/T (1969) Deluxe Edition (Bonus Disc) MP3 & FLAC

"Now I'm ready to close my eyes, and now I'm ready to close my mind. And now I'm ready to feel your hand and lose my heart on the burning sands."

The story has been spun endlessly but it never gets old: young James Osterberg, son of a high-school English teacher and baseball coach, raised in the trailer parks of Ypsilanti, Michigan, drummer in a string of local bands during his high-school years (one of which, The Iguanas, would yield his future moniker), University of Michigan dropout, lands in Chicago and plays drums in various blues bands before eventually forming a Garage-Rock outfit called The Psychedelic Stooges with a few former high-school buddies, inspired by Jim Morrison's theatrical antics at a Doors concert in 1967, he transforms himself into Iggy Pop, one of the most fearless and manic performers of the rock era, and his band transforms themselves into The Stooges, who end up rivaling The Velvet Underground as the most influential underground band of the late-sixties / early seventies. Forty plus years after the fact, it's hard to imagine what The Stooges must have sounded like to unsuspecting ears in 1969. While the mid-sixties Garage-Rock movement was certainly an inspiration, The Stooges pushed this movement's scruffier edges to extremes by integrating an unfiltered visceral aggression into their recordings and performances that was quite unprecedented at the time (even relative to bands such as The Who), in effect, drafting much of the blueprint for the Punk revolution that followed less than a decade later. That a former member of The Velvet Underground, John Cale, signed on to produce The Stooges' debut is a good indicator that Iggy Pop & co. were making waves on the underground music scene with their often wildly confrontational live performances (Pop pretty much invented the "stage dive" and regularly used broken glass as a stage prop for acts of self-mutilation). Reportedly, The Stooges were prepared to record five songs, all of which were to include long improvisational passages to mirror the approach of their live performances, but their record label, Elektra, balked at this, requesting that the band record additional tracks (falsely claiming they had more songs, the band had to write these practically overnight in the studio). Over the years, Cale's production has been often criticized for toning down the furor that characterized The Stooges' live performances, and his final mix was ultimately rejected by Elektra (the album was subsequently remixed before its release by Pop and Jac Holzman); however, it's hard to deny the brilliance of what the band was able to capture on tape. From the dirty, distorted wah-wah effect of the opening bars of "1969," it is clear that The Stooges are more interested in tapping into deep wells of primal rage than into pretentious utopian dreams of universal love. With its shuffling Bo Diddley beat and bluesy feel counterpoised to Pop's wonderfully cynical vocal delivery, "1969" functions as an anthemic counter-narrative to the increasingly ineffectual posturings of the psychedelic movement. The message here is "fuck you, I'm bored," and in context, it is a powerful one. And then there's "I Wanna Be Your Dog," a song which seems to drop out of the sky without precedent as if delivered via time machine from a decade into the future- this is the violently stripped-down sound of Punk-Rock being born. From the iconic opening blast of guitar-crunch to the unforgettable descending melody that would go on to influence bands such as Joy Division to Pop's innovatively perverted lyrics, "I Wanna Be Your Dog" is a timeless masterpiece that sits proudly at the side of The Velvet Underground's best work. While The Stooges does get bogged down in places by weak material, especially the strangely out of place psychedelia of "We Will Fall," Ron Asheton's fuzzed-out guitar solos usually show up to save the day. If The Stooges debut wasn't their strongest set of songs (that honor goes to their next album, Fun House), it is, nonetheless, absolutely essential for its valiant attempt to start the Punk revolution nearly a decade early.

Paisley Underground Series, #20: The 13th Floor Elevators- The Psychedelic Sounds of The 13th Floor Elevators (1966) / Easter Everywhere (1967) / Bull of the Woods (1968) MP3 & FLAC

"If you fear I'll lose my spirit like a drunkard's wasted wine. Don't you even think about it;
I'm feeling fine."

Exhaustively documented in Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era 1965-1968, the mid-sixties saw the rise of countless local D.I.Y. Garage-Rock music scenes throughout the U.S. that, in many ways, laid the groundwork for the psychedelic movement later in the decade and also the Punk movement that first cropped up in NYC in the mid-to-late seventies. While most of the bands comprising these local scenes were short-lived and destined for permanent obscurity, The 13th Floor Elevators, from Austin, TX., transcended their provincial origins by being one of the first bands to openly advocate the use of psychotropic drugs as a form of mind expansion as well as allowing the effects of this practice to overtly influence their music. Another characteristic that set The 13th Floor Elevators apart from their Garage-Rock contemporaries was their musical sophistication, which manifested itself not only in their playing, but also in their tendency to draw from multiple genres to create their distinctive brand of psych-rock. Led by one of the most tragic figures of the rock-era, Roky Erickson, arguably rock 'n' roll's first real counter-culture "wildman" figure and electric jug player Tommy Hall, who claimed to have participated in LSD experiments at UT Austin in 1964, The 13th Floor Elevators led a dangerously precarious (in a legal sense) bohemian existence in amidst the ultra-conservative culture of their home state, something that eventually necessitated an extended stay in San Francisco in 1966-1967, where they helped foment the quickly developing Bay Area psychedelic scene and reconnected with fellow Austin native Janis Joplin (Joplin is rumored to have been influenced by Erickson's distinctive vocal style). Just before their visit to the Bay Area, the band had released their classic debut album, The Psychedelic Sounds of The 13th Floor Elevators, which was something of a clarion call for an impending revolution in rock music. Aided by a breakthrough single, "You're Gonna Miss Me," which landed Erickson, Hall & co. on, of all things, American Bandstand, The 13th Floor Elevators' debut album was a minor commercial success despite their humble Garage-Rock origins; however, what truly set the album apart was its palpable sense of its own pioneering status. In 1966, there were a number of bands toying with adding psychedelic elements to their songs, but in the case of The 13th Floor Elevators, they were pretty much inventing psych-rock from scratch by investing their songs with a manic sense of emotional urgency and broadening their musical palette to include sonic textures falling far outside the purview of conventional pop music (not the least of which were Hall's simply bizarre contributions on the electric jug). After returning to Austin in early 1967, the band began recording what would become their masterpiece, Easter Everywhere, an unparallelled piece of late-sixties psychedelia that features a more polished and confident sound than its precursor matched with a cohesive set of consistently fine songs. From the acid-drenched slow-burner "Slip Inside This House," to the beautifully mournful folk ballad "I Had to Tell You," Roky Erickson's vocals are simply stunning in their ability to convey everything from unhinged passion to wistful melancholia, and Stacy Sutherland's lead guitar work is an exercise in understated melodic brilliance. Sadly, a year after the release of Easter Everywhere, Erickson was arrested for the possession of a single marijuana joint, which, in Texas at the time, was prosecuted in outlandishly harsh ways. In order to avoid a 10 year prison term, Erickson pleaded insanity; consequently, he was institutionalized and repeatedly subjected to electroshock therapy until his release in 1972.  As a result of Erickson's fate, The 13th Floor Elevators slowly fell apart, finally disbanding in 1969 after releasing Bull of the Woods; however, few if any bands were as instrumental in the rise of psychedelia and the unprecedented revolution that rock music underwent during the late 1960s.

The 13th Floor Elevators- "You're Gonna Miss Me" (1966) Unofficial Video

This mid-sixties Austin garage band, led by the legendary Roky Erickson and featuring the electrified jug playing of Tommy Hall, is pretty much ground zero for the psychedelic rock movement. If you've ever wondered what it would be like to drop acid in Texas, well, here ya go...

Paisley Underground Series, #19: Various Artists- WarfRat Tales: Unabridged (1983) MP3 & FLAC

"The seas and the trees calling me. She's a river between day and night. I'm looking for her light, creeping coastline of lights."

At the dawn of the eighties, the L.A. underground music scene was comprised of a heady mix of bands and styles that included punk, post-punk, cow-punk, neo-psych, power-pop, jangle-pop, rockabilly, and everything in between. In addition to its quite unprecedented musical diversity, what also set this underground scene apart from others before it and those since was the genre-defying camaraderie between the various bands involved. As such, it was not unusual to see someone like Chris D. of The Flesh Eaters- ferocious purveyors of an exceedingly dark blues-punk hybrid that made them legends among the hardcore crowd- befriend and support a band such as The Dream Syndicate, who were in the process of spearheading a psych-revival that would come to be known as the Paisley Underground. Many of these relationships were forged through shared ties with the indie record labels that mushroomed in and around the scene whose rosters often reflected the amazing variety of the L.A. underground itself, a phenomenon that helped give rise to the era of the indie compilation as the best way to promote the music. A storied example of this was Warfrat Records, a tiny artist-run label, whose recordings were made in a (literally) makeshift studio called Lyceum Sound, which was actually a sound-proofed two-car garage (we're talking egg-cartons on the walls here) that had been rented out by members of The Last as a rehearsal space. The "studio" was originally conceived as a much preferred return to sonic austerity for The Last after having had their sound subjected to the sterilizing effects of the professional recording process on their debut LP, L.A. Explosion!  Eventually, Lyceum Sound played host to bands such as The Gun Club, Rain Parade, The Long Ryders and Savage Republic to name but a few, all of whom engaged in something like recorded rehearsals. As The Last's manager Gary Stewart remembers, the WarfRat record label was born out of necessity: "I didn't so much dream up the WarfRat label as I was forced to start it, as a way of releasing a single [...] that was getting some airplay on Rodney Bingenheimer's Sunday night radio show." The compilation WarfRat Tales was intended as a way to promote many of the bands who regularly passed through Lyceum Sound as well as to pay off some bills (according to Stewart, the album accomplished only one of these objectives). The album itself is one of the better comps to emanate from the L.A. underground, and has the added advantage of being primarily comprised of unique "demo" performances that are often superior to the more polished versions available elsewhere. The opener, "Try to Rise," a creepy, campy psychedelic rocker by The Last that sounds a bit like Frankenfurter of The Rocky Horror Picture Show fronting The Doors, sets the tone for this consistently great and intensely moody set of songs. Another highlight is "Stop the Clock" by the Earwigs, a strange mash-up of punk, ska and early new-wave that functions as a tension-filled time-capsule of cold war paranoia. WarfRat Tales also features some wonderfully scruffy cuts from Paisley Underground mainstays Rain Parade, including a stunning rendition of "This Can't Be Today," later re-recorded for their debut LP, Emergency Third Rail Power Trip. Perhaps the most essential track is "Creeping Coastlines of Light" by The Leaving Trains, a twangy, moody, transcendent slow-burner that is the equal of anything recorded by the scene's more well-known "roots" bands such as The Long Ryders and True West. WarfRat Tales is worth revisting because it offers a significant glimpse into an amazingly vibrant music scene long since gone; however, what makes it truly distinctive is the way its austerely-recorded tracks capture the passion and camaraderie that made the L.A. underground what it was.

Mark Lanegan- "Ugly Sunday" Video (1989)

Any other Mark Lanegan or Screaming Trees fans out there?

Paisley Underground Series, #18: The Chesterfield Kings- Night of the Living Eyes: 1979-1983 (1989) / Here Are the Chesterfield Kings (1982) MP3 & FLAC

"Cry all night girl, I won't care, you can't hurt me, I won't be there."

Since its original release in 1972, Nuggets, the legendary compilation of mid-sixties Garage-Rock, has served as a fertile inspiration to any number of underground music scenes ranging from hardcore Punk to psychedelic revivalism. One reason for this is the raw energy and D.Y.I. ethos that characterized bands such as The Electric Prunes, The Standells, and The Seeds, which, to some extent, created the blueprint for both the Punk and Post-Punk movements a decade later (it's no coincidence that Nuggets was curated by future Patti Smith guitarist Lenny Kaye). During the late seventies and early eighties, Los Angeles functioned as something of an underground epicenter for not only Punk, but psyche-rock as well, while the east coast played host to a major Garage-Rock revival spear-headed by bands such as The Lyres, The Fuzztones, and a Rochester band called The Chesterfield Kings. The band was conceived by Greg Prevost, a music journalist and record collector who had previously fronted a garage-punk band called Distorted Levels. In their original incarnation, The Chesterfield Kings went to great lengths to recreate the sound, look, and feel of original Nuggets-era bands, even going so far as to press limited copies of their early singles to render them just as collectable as those of the bands they were emulating. Until releasing their second album, Stop!, The Chesterfield kings were primarily a covers band, but one specializing in only the most esoteric Garage-Rock obscurities. As such, on their early singles, which were eventually collected on Night of the Living Eyes: 1979-1983, and their debut LP, Here Are The Chesterfield Kings, the band is able to consistently avoid sounding derivative because the material is, by and large, unfamiliar and the performances are informed with Punk-inspired fury and a meticulous attention to mid-sixties-era authenticity. The tracks comprising the first half of Night of the Living Eyes 1979-1983 are the band's initial pre-debut LP releases, which tend to showcase a more basic, punk-influenced sound than their later work. For example, on "Exit 9," a cover of a long-forgotten Garage-Rock gem by The Heard, The Chesterfield Kings manage to capture the grimy psychedelic feel of the original while injecting a little Punk rage for good measure, and when all is said and done, it's their version that sounds definitive. While their debut LP, Here Are The Chesterfield Kings, turns down the Punk quotient a notch or two, the results are no less impressive, as on The Turtles' "Outside Chance," which features razor-sharp guitar notes and sneering vocals that lend the song a little more bite than The Turtles were able to give it. Over the years, many have written off The Chesterfield Kings as being too derivative and one-note, but where a lot of their contemporaries eventually abandoned Garage-Rock for a more conventional, and thoroughly forgettable, hard-rock sound, The Chesterfield Kings have, for the most part, stayed true to the rich tradition that provided them with their original inspiration.

Iggy Pop- "Lust for Life" (1977) Live in Manchester

The original punk: Mr. Osterberg in a sublimely wrecked state post-Stooges

Paisley Underground Series, #16: Lime Spiders- The Cave Comes Alive (1987) / S/T Live Promo (1987) MP3 & FLAC

"I like your heart but there's no room in it for me."

The various music scenes dealing in neo-psychedelia that mushroomed (pun intended) during the late seventies and early eighties in the U.S., U.K., Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere were all as equally influenced by Punk as they were by the psychedelic sixties. So while the influence of bands such as The Byrds, The Doors, and The Velvet Underground was ubiquitous throughout the various scenes, Nuggets-era Garage-Rock was just as influential, as its rawer sound and D.I.Y. ethos suggested an obvious parallel with (and perhaps original influence on) Punk. One of the most admired of these Garage-Rock revivalists were The Lime Spiders. Allegedly named after an Australian tropical drink, the band was formed in Sydney by Mick Blood and Darryl Mather, and their sound was equal parts Punk aggression and Nuggets-style psych-pop. The Lime Spiders spent the first six years of their existence undergoing sporadic line-up changes while occasionally issuing brilliantly unhinged singles, and they did not get around to recording an album until 1987's The Cave Comes Alive!, which has, over the decades, become a full-fledged cult-classic. While the sound of the album was once described in Rolling Stone as "The Sex Pistols on acid," when placed in the larger context of The Lime Spiders' discography, their debut LP indicates a band transitioning away from some of the Garage-Rock elements of their earlier work by integrating subtle pop and conventional hard-rock touches into the arrangements (this would become much more pronounced on their final two albums, Volatile and Beethoven's Fist). Nevertheless, The Cave Comes Alive! still demonstrates plenty of Punk attitude and psychedelic overtones, and includes covers of garage-psych legends The Electric Prunes and The Litter. What is most striking about the album is its wealth of great original songs, such as lead track and single "My Favorite Room," which begins inauspiciously with a progression of overly polished, almost-metal sounding guitar chords but quickly moves in a more familiar Garage-Rock direction when Mick Blood's vocals enter the mix. The wonderfully anarchic cover of The Litter's "Action Woman" is much more reminiscent of The Lime Spiders' earlier work, as it features one of Blood's best graveled vocal turns on the album and a more dynamic, Punk-based arrangement; in doing so, it arguably bests the original. The Cave Comes Alive! suggested that great things lay ahead for The Lime Spiders, but similar to the band they toured with in 1987, The Cult, with each successive album, they lapsed into a more conventional, and thus faceless, hard rock approach; nevertheless, their debut is a Garage-Rock classic and well-deserving of its hallowed status.

Lime Spiders- "The Other Side of You" Video (1988)

There's an infestation of Lime Spiders on the horizon...

Paisley Underground Series, #11: Green on Red- Gravity Talks (1983) MP3 & FLAC

"I've crawled around caves and books; I've seen the blue parade."

With roots in the Tucson neo-psych scene of the late seventies and early eighties (the same milieu that produced Howie Gelb's Giant Sand), Green on Red left for the more fertile underground musical pastures of L.A., relocating there in 1981, and, so the story goes, playing an instrumental role in solidifying The Paisley Underground scene by holding weekly barbecues at their Hollywood apartment, which were regularly attended by members of bands such as The Dream Syndicate and Rain Parade. As Steve Wynn (of The Dream Syndicate) recalls, "Every Sunday, we’d get together for a barbecue, bring tons of alcohol and whatever drugs—lots of burgers and chicken—and we’d just sit around, play guitar, and talk. That’s how the friendships happened, not in nightclubs or recording studios." Gravity Talks, the band's first long player after releasing two EPs, features the early line-up before the arrival of guitarist Chuck Prophet and with him, a much more overtly country/roots-based sound. This is not to say that Gravity Talks is a straight up neo-psyche record because signs of Green on Red's roots music origins are everywhere, but Chris Cacavas' Manzarek-style contributions on electric organ lend the album its distinctive (and quite memorable) psychedelic character. Admittedly, Dan Stuart's whiney country-tinged vocals can be an acquired taste, but juxtaposed to the album's psychedelic overtones, they give the songs some Garage-Rock authenticity. Many of the songs on Gravity Talks meditate on death and the irretrievable loss of childhood. For example, on "Blue Parade," which features some lovely, haunting organ-work from Cacavas, Stuart, in one of his best vocal performances, sings about loss, ranging from a dead dog's unplanned exhumation to finding a parent dead in a bedroom. The title track, a catchy garage-rocker with an irresistible Doors-style electric organ hook, features Stuart at his snotty, Jagger-esque best. Green on Red's later more roots-oriented albums, such as Gas Food Lodging, are usually cited as their best work, but Gravity Talks, coming as it does midway between the band's overtly psychedelic and roots-rock phases, catches the band at their creative peak, and is a true classic of The Paisley Underground.