Nuggets and Little Tiny Rocks: the Psychedelic Singles

Nuggets and Little Tiny Rocks: the Psychedelic Singles: 1965-67. I tried to put the songs in order of release. Again, if I only had a month for a release date, I put it in the middle of that month's releases. If I only had the year, I stuck it between June and July. What was that wave of performers listening to on AM radio during this time? Maybe it sounded like this.

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This One, I'm Sure, You All Know....

Today, April 28 in l978, Cheap Trick recorded the first of two shows from which Cheap Trick at Budokan was culled. Initially a Japanese only release, it proved a popular import and was released domestically in early l979. It was my first real album purchase aside from some Beatles and Beach Boy ‘Best Ofs” and...um... Paperlace (when I was 8). I remember the booklet that came with the album –– the lyrics were in English, there were some tour photos and everything else was written in Japanese. Five (and a half) of the album's lO songs were from In Color . I read somewhere that the band wasn't happy with that LP's slick production, and wanted a do-over. It certainly worked with " I Want You to Want Me " and " Clock Strikes Ten "...the other three songs on this expanded version do not disappoint. Later, during the summer of '79, my dad took me and three friends to see Cheap Trick. The Pez Band (later Off Broadway ) opened up. Dad was over 4...

Cookin', Steamin', Workin', and Relaxin' With the Miles Davis Quintet

Sixty five years ago, on October 26, the Miles Davis Quintet assembled for a recording session that yielded most of the Cookin' and Relaxin' albums and a tune apiece that appeared on the Workin' and Steamin' discs. The other tracks on those albums were recorded in a one day session earlier that year. Four quality albums, not bad for two days of work.

Yes, There's Gas in the Car

In 1970 the police raided the house of Owsley Stanley - famed financial backer of Blue Cheer, architect of the dread "Wall of Sound" and LSD producer of renown. It was the third bust of note. The first, in December of 1967 found him with millions of dollars of acid. He was released on bail. Three years later, in Jnnuary, 1970, he was arrested along with the Grateful Dead in New Orleans - as related in " Truckin ". This last arrest resulted in the revocation of his bail and he spent the next two years in prison. On his release, Stanley returns to the Dead - a band that he initially bankrolled - to run sound for them again, but all is not the same. He's no longer the player he was. The road crew has emerged as a power center. He builds the Wall of Sound but the band goes on hiatus in 1974. The Wall is dismantled and Owsley never works with them again. The whole arc of his time with the Dead inspired Steely Dan's " Kid Charlemagne " - working in his...

1977 or So: the Early Punk Singles

Here's a long playlist: 1977 or So . It attempts to track the punk sound through singles arranged, more or less, in the order that they were released. When I could only find the month of issue, I placed it in the middle of the month. If I could only find the year of release, I stuck it between June and July. Imagine you had a friend at a cool record store with access. And no, I do not have a lot of time on my hands. I made this playlist years ago. On Instagram @dadrock101 On Twitter @dadrock101

Who's Next At 50

It should have been a double album. That's what they recorded for Lifehouse , Pete's sci-fi rock opera follow up to Tommy . For some reason, he couldn't get the plot or libretto right and ended up paring it down to a single album. They didn't waste a track. Like Sticky Fingers , IV, and others, it is one of those 1971 albums that dominated AOR FM into the '80s and classic rock channels to this day. While I'll usually change stations when a couple of the tunes come on....again....I still listen to some of the tacks that don't get much play anymore. Most of the other material came out as singles, Townshend solo tracks, cuts on the Odds & Sods compilation, or bonus tracks on one of the several expanded definitive deluxe reissues of Who's Next . The version of "Greyhound Girl" is a live track included on Endless Wire. Here is Pete's demo: The songs here are not all part of the Lifehouse plot, but they either are from those sessions or ...

Roky Erickson - One flew east and one flew west....

Probably the saddest of the acid casualties was the singer and frontman of the 13th Floor Elevators, Roky Erickson. We lost him just over a year ago. He and the other Elevators were open proponents of various psychedelics, deep in the heart of Texas. Roky himself purportedly dropped acid about 300 times. In 1968 he was hospitalized after an episode wherein he began speaking gibberish on stage. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia. In 1969 he was busted with a joint. In a move to dodge a 10-year prison term, he pleaded insanity and....um....won, subsequently being committed to a state psychiatric hospital. After several escape attempts, he was transferred to another facility where Nurse Ratched gave him shock therapy and Thorazine treatments. No lobotomy, thankfully, but he was released in 1974, a changed man. From then on, he labored in obscurity, producing a solid four albums worth your attention. Doug Sahm produced his first single release - "Two Headed Dog." CCR's...

Linda Pop

Happy 75th birthday to Linda Ronstadt. She doesn't have the same alt-country cred as Emmylou, but she deserved it. She didn't have that direct link to Gram, but she probably did the best job of pulling off his mix of rock, country and soul. Maybe our ilk holds the Eagles against her. Maybe it's because there was nothing "alt" about her. Growing up, her music was everywhere, whether it was Dad's country station - WMAQ, or my aunt's pop station - WOKY. Her last two "rock" albums - Mad Love and Get Closer - ventured away from the country. Perhaps too established to be new wave or power pop, she put some punchy covers by the Cretones and Billy Thermal and Elvis Costello. While her earlier cover of "Allison" featured the anodyne west coast production values of the time, two of the three covers on Mad Love hold their own. Even her oldies covers are primarily British Invasion era pop of the type favored by the skinny tie set. Over the pas...

Happenings Some Years Time Ago: Then There Were Four

After defining the Yardbirds' sound for a year and a half through several groundbreaking, singles and one masterpiece of an album, Jeff Beck boarded a plane in Corpus Christi, Texas on this date in 1966, leaving the Yardbirds midway through a Dick Clark Caravan of Stars Tour. As the band finished recording Roger the Engineer in June, original bassist Paul Samwell Smith left the band. Jimmy Page was brought in first as a replacement on bass and later - after rhythm guitarist Chris Dreja shifted to bass - as co-lead guitarist. The band toured the US and then returned to London in the fall, where they recorded three songs. The first, " Happenings Ten Years Time Ago " (with John Paul Jones on bass) had been started a few months earlier. It is a frenetic bit of freakbeat, featuring the eastern motifs, distortion, and feedback fans had come to expect of Beck. Page's playing is distinctive. Released late in October, it didn't do well on the charts. The flip side, ...

Sucking Since the '70s

The Rolling Stones released Tattoo You on this day in 1981. It was their last good album. Their last great album was probably Exile , maybe Some Girls . Sandwiched between the two, Emotional Rescue is almost as good. It wasn't even really recorded as an album. Its core is mostly comprised of outtakes stretching back to 1972. The band needed a new album to tour, but the Twins weren't getting along, so associate producer, Chris Kimsey, went through the archives and found the best bits for the band to finish off in 1980-81. "Little T&A" comes from a basic track cut during the Emotional Rescue sessions. "Start Me Up" originated during the Some Girls . The band worked on "Hang Fire" during both. It's a bit like Physical Graffiti, except that most of that album's tracks were new, whereas most of Tattoo consists of outtakes. It's a bit like Odds & Sods except that the tunes were worked on ...

Little Richard: He Got What He Wanted, But He Lost What He Had

He'll be missed. In Mystery Train, Greil Marcus writes about Little Richard's antics on The Dick Cavett Show. His segment runs from about 1:00 to 1:07...but he interjects himself throughout, expounding on life, love, art, and his big toe (at 1:18, 1:37-1:40 and 1:51). Ten years or so before this appearance, he'd been on the top of the charts. Then he walked away from it...to go to seminary school. He returned to show business, guesting in Catalina Caper, which MST3K film critic, Tom Servo, surmised was done while "whacked out on goofballs". Goofballs or no, he could still rock. For my part, I caught on at some point in the 80s, after hearing "Tutti Frutti" a soundtrack. I bought a cheap cassette of his Greatest Hits at Woolworth's, not realizing until years later that it was from rerecordings, made in the 1960s for VeeJay. Normally, these are to be avoided, but not in this case. There is a murk and ragged feel...like Exile on Main...

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