Saturday, January 9, 2016

MAD RIVER LIVE 67-68


A somewhat rough but none the less a great documentation of live music from a very short lived SF - Berkeley band. Thanks to the original poster for this little piece of work.

Mad River - Live & Unreleased 1967/1968
Dr. Sunday's Medicine Show, Peoples Park,
Santa Clara, October 8th 1967.

Intro
Wind Chimes +
Snitson @
The War Goes On *^

1967 Demos.

Jerry's Tune
You Just Don't Leave Her
Timothy
Wind Chimes

Antioch College, June 1966.

Lovin Cup
I Just Want To Make Love To You
A Man Like Me Set

Bonus Track.....San Francisco International Pop Festival
Alameda County Fairgrounds, CA, USA
26 October 1968

Bio from Acid,Fuzz,and Flowers....

This unique band were fronted by Lawrence Hammond, who was born in Berkeley, but spent much of his childhood in Nebraska. Bluegrass music was his main musical influence. The band was formed by Hammond (harp, vcls) and a series of fellow medical students (Robinson (gtr), Manning (bs), and Dewey (drms)), who all attended Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. They were originally known as The Mad River Blues Band - Mad River being a small tributary of the Ohio. The band, minus Manning, then moved to Washington D.C. for a while. In this period they began to write their own material and secured gigs at very disreputable dives. They then returned to Yellow Springs where Manning rejoined the band and Rick Bochner was added on guitars. In the Spring of 1967 the band quit college, headed for San Francisco, and soon became based in Berkeley. Soon afterwards Sam Silver, a friend of Ed Denson, manager of Country Joe and the Fish, became their manager. Consequently, they secured a number of gigs with The Fish. The band were befriended by Lonnie Hewitt and in 1967 recorded their legendary Wind Chimes (EP) on his Wee label (10021). It's an interesting record, not easy to obtain, which contains an early version of Amphetamine Gazelle (simply called Gazelle on the EP), Wind Chimes and Orange Fire. The first two are on the first album. Orange Fire is a non-LP track.

By the end of 1967 they had played a number of Fillmore and Avalon gigs and were signed to Capitol along with The Quicksilver Messenger Service and The Steve Miller Band. Their debut album was issued in 1968. Extremely uncommercial it was particularly noteworthy for Lawrence Hammond's distinctive quavering vocals and some superb interweaving acid guitar work (particularly on The War Goes On and Eastern Light. It has later transpired that during its making the recording and playback speeds were not the same - so everything came out higher and faster than they had played it!

Prior to the recording of their second album, Manning left the band and they got a new manager, Harry Sobol. They also asked Jerry Corbitt (of The Youngbloods), an acquaintance from their Yellow Spring days, to produce it. The album was an amalgam of different styles - short country rock tracks like Paradise Bar and Grill, Love's Not The Way To Treat A Friend and Cherokee Queen appear alongside a couple of long acid influenced tracks, Leave Me Stay and Academy Cemetery. This album was greeted with more enthusiasm than their debut by the critics, but Capitol did nothing to promote it and did not release it in Britain.

Inevitably, then, Mad River split up in 1968. Bochner went to run a homestead in Canada. Dewey worked on Jerry Corbitt's first album and later had a spell with Country Joe and the Fish, Grootna, Eggs Over Easy and Bodacious D.F.. Robinson became a building contractor and Manning did occasional work for him and some session work.

Lawrence Hammond later formed The Whiplash Band, a bluegrass/country music outfit. Supported by this outfit (Alan Lane (bs), Janet Bryson (vcls), Al McShane (drms), and James Louis Parber (lead gtr)), Hammond recorded a country rock album Coyote's Dream (Takoma C 1047) in 1976. Fellow Mad River members, Dewey and Robinson also made guest appearances on the album.

As tor Mad River - their output is essential for any collector of psychedelia.

(Vernon Joynson / Max Waller / Stephane Rebeschini)


10 comments:

stixmaccoy said...

Where's the linK?? Clicked on verything!!!

Anonymous said...

Hi, very nice doc in despite the iiiiouiowwwaaauuuoooooaaaiiieeeeeaaiiou quality sound !
thanks

louashbury

24HRDEJAVU said...

Sorry about the sound issues but sometimes is not so clear

Anonymous said...

Hello Bill,
Glad you're back.
Very hard to find live stuff of Mad River,so many thanks for this!
Best wishes from
Hand from Holland

El Guajolote said...

Hi, can you reupload? thanks in advance!

drogos said...

hello,
Not so many live from Mad River to miss this one. Many thanks for sharing.
Best regards from the French West Coast,
Robert

propylaen2001 said...

I'd greatly appreciate if you could reupload this one. Many thanks in advance!

24HOURDEJAVU said...

I will be happy to recall if you send an email with who you are and where your at Thanks

El Guajolote said...

Hi, can you re-up this album? thanks!

Anonymous said...

Even with the audio being if-y or bad, I'm interested to hear what these guys sounded like live. I always enjoyed their 1st album more than the follow-up. I traded a guy something for it, but can't remember what. I always thought they had a bit of Country Joe in them as well as the Grateful Dead somewhat.

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