GARAGETHINGS

In December 1992 The Pretty Things, London's raunchiest 60's R&B band, joined forces with members of The Inmates, one of London's and indeed Europe's finest R&B bands together with Procol Harum's legendary Matthew Fisher to pay a unique tribute to America's Garage Rock. The result is the ultimate party album!!

01. He's Waitin'
02. Strychnine
03. Pushing Too Hard
04. Kicks
05. Candy
06. Louie Louie
07. 96 Tears
08. Let's Talk About Girls
09. Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White
10. I'm A Man 
11. Red River Rock
12. Midnight To 6 Man '93

CIRCUS DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN

Original artwork by Martin Sharpe from the 1968 Cream LP "Wheels Of Fire"

Circus Days Are Here Again charts the shift from psychedelic pop into the heavier territory of psychedelic and progressive rock, with Velvett Fogg (‘Lady Caroline’), Humble Pie (‘The Light of Love‘), Man (‘Empty Room’) and Bobak Jons Malone (‘On a Meadow Lea) all on fine form, among others. There’s a live snatch from one of the Soft Machine’s meandering excursions as well as, somewhat peculiarly, Andrew Bown’s ‘Tarot’, the theme tune to ITV’s 1970 kids’ series Ace of Wands.

DISC FOUR
1. Circus Days: Junior's Eyes
2. No Home Today: Kult
3. Lady Caroline: Velvett Fogg
4. Go Your Way: Andromeda
5. Diamond Hard Blue Apples Of The Moon: The Nice
6. Horse: Sam Gopal
7. Candlelight: Eddie Hardin & Pete York
8. How Can I Live: Fat Mattress
9. Tarot: Andy Bown
10. Light Of Love: Humble Pie
11. On A Meadow Lea: Bobak Jons Malone
12. Open Ground: Pussy
13. Fair Maiden: Woody Kern
14. Empty Room: Man
15. Venus: Samson
16. My Gration Or: Opal Butterfly
17. Thank You Pierrot Lunaire/Have You Ever Been Green/Pataphysical Introduction 2: The Soft Machine
18. Felix: Andwella's Dream
19. Born In A Trunk: Spice
20. All In Your Mind: Stray

HAPPYDAYS TOYTOWN

HappyDaysToyTown hits the toytown and popsike trail with such little-heard gems as Timon’s ‘The Bitter Thoughts of Little Jane’, The Beatstalkers’ tale of the pot-smoking ‘Silver Tree Top School for Boys’ and Andy Ellison’s mellatron-infused ‘Fool FromUpper Eden’. If that’s not enough to tempt you, then there’s also a BBC session of one of the all time psychedelic-pop classics, The Status Quo’s ‘Pictures of Matchstick Men‘, as well as Birmingham’s own, and early Steve Gibbons excursion, The Uglys with ‘Love and Best Wishes’.


DISC THREE
1. Pictures Of Matchstick Men: Status Quo
2. Five White Horses: Sun Dragon
3. Riding A Wave: Turnstyle
4. I Know She Believes: Picadilly Line
5. Hey Mr Carpenter: Fox
6. Bitter Thoughts Of Little Jane: Timon
7. Disappear: Gilbert
8. Encapsulated Marigold: Our Plastic Dream
9. Henry Long: Epics
10. Lullaby: Grapefruit
11. I've Seen To Dream: Harmony Grass
12. Nodnol: Spectrum
13. Colour Sergeant Lilywhite: West Coast Consortium
14. Seeing Things Green: Yellow Bellow Room Boom
15. Golden Apples: The Californians
16. Don't Turn Around: Loot
17. Silver Tree Top School For Boys: Beatstalkers
18. Give Him A Flower: The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown
19. Fade Away Maureen: Tony Hazzard
20. Yellow Rainbow: Rockin' Berries
21. Sylvie: Hill
22. Fool From Upper Eden: Andy Ellison
23. Love And Best Wishes: Uglys
24. Sunshine: Gun
25. Green Circles: Twice As Much
26. Mr Job: Alan Bown Set
27. Happydaystorytown: The Small Faces

http://www90.zippyshare.com/v/lbDSMa1U/file.html

PLANT A FLOWER CHILD TODAY

Plant a Flower Child Today blossoms the more flowery sound associated with the summer of love, as The End start things out with an alternative version of their ‘Loving Sacred Loving’, featuring a closing harpsichord flourish of ‘Land of Hope and Glory’, absent from the album version. The disc finishes 26 tracks later, on another alternative take, this time an unreleased, brass-free version of The Crazy World of Arthur Brown’s ever-incandescent ‘Fire’. And as always ....your feedback is most appreciated.

DISC TWO
1. Loving Sacred Loving: The End
2. All Day All Night: Blonde On Blonde
3. Crazy One: Ramases & Selket
4. Man In Black: Skip Bifferty
5. Yellow Balloon: Icarus
6. Real Life Permanent Dream: The Orange Machine
7. Clown: Eire Apparent
8. When The Wind Arises: Rokes
9. I'm Flying: Serendipity
10. Trip On An Orange Bicycle: The Orange Bicycle
11. Utterly Simple: Smoke
12. London Social Degree: Billy Nicholls
13. Golden Lion: Lomax Alliance
14. Sunshine Day: Jethro Tull
15. Boy Meets Girl: Paper Blitz Tissue
16. Cave Of Clear Light: Bystanders
17. I Wonder Where My Sister's Gone: Anan
18. Man In A Shop: Marmalade
19. Lord John: Bobcats
20. Mazy: Peep Show
21. Bakerman: Moon's Train
22. Love Hate Revenge: Episode Six
23. Good Evening: Tickle
24. It: Excelsior Spring
25. Night Is A Comin' (aka Lindyloo): Warm Sounds
26. Fire: Crazy World Of Arthur Brown

SOWING THE SEEDS

The first disc of this interesting compilation. Please give me feedback on the post.
The set is a mixture of rarities, unreleased tracks and live recordings. There are contributions from more established acts, such as The Small Faces, The Kinks, Soft Machine and The Nice, and an absolute wealth of material from lesser known artists. Ramases & Selket, The Orange Bicycle, Our Plastic Dream, Fat Mattress, Harmony Grass… Just looking at the names on the back of the elongated slipcase this treasure trove is housed in, is enough to send any psych, acid, or early prog enthusiasts bandy with excitement.

Each of the four discs on Real Life Permanent Dreams sports its own title, reflecting the chronological categorising of sound, as opposed to date, into which the five years have been divided. So it starts with Sowing the Seeds before moving onto Plant a Flower Child Today, then HappyDaysToyTown, and finishing on Circus Days Are Here Again. Any one of these discs, if sent out into the cruel world to fend for itself, would prove a formidable force to reckon with. When combined, like Dai-X on Star Fleet, they become both the unstoppable force and the immovable object that, if ever were to meet, would spell the end of the world.

Sowing the Seeds largely covers the raw, infant sound of psychedelia – though some tracks are as late as 1968 – with early, acid-laced examples from Donovan (‘Sunny Goodge Street’), John’s Children (‘The Lilac Hand of Menthol Dan’), Lord Sutch (‘The Cheat’) and future Quo, The Traffic Jam (‘I Don’t Want You’).

1. My Friend Jack: The Smoke
2. No More You And Me: The Tornados
3. Cheat: Lord Sutch
4. Doctor Doctor: Frame
5. Day And Night: The Drag Set
6. Fancy: The Kinks
7. I Don't Want You: Traffic Jam
8. Breaking Up Scene: Honeybus
9. Snow White: Winston's Fumbs
10. I Like It - Christian:Neil & The Crusaders
11. Black Sheep RIP: The Australian Playboys
12. Circles: Fleur De Lys
13. Lilac Hand Of Menthol Dan: Marc Bolan & John's Children
14. You're Holding Me Down: Buzz
15. I Take It That We're Through: The Riot Squad
16. Come On Back: Paul & Ritchie (aka The Cryin' Shames)
17. It's A Crime: Kirkbys
18. Love Me 'Til The Sun Shines: The Kinks
19. Hippy Gumbo: Marc Bolan
20. Gently Tender: The Incredible String Band
21. Sunny Goodge Street: Donovan
22. Linda Loves Linda: Floribunda Rose
23. Up On The Wooden Hills To Bedfordshire: The Small Faces
24. Rubber Monkey: Santa Barbara Machine Head
25. You've Got To Hold On: The Deviants
26. Season Of The Witch: Julie Driscoll with Brian Auger & The Trinity

MORE UK PSYCHEDELIA

There have been previous attempts to marshal a lot of British psychedelia into one compilation, but Real Life Permanent Dreams is a little different from those. This four-CD, 99-song box set isn't a best-of, but more like an attempt to assemble a very wide (though still representative) cross section of material, most of it pretty obscure to the average listener. For the most part, it succeeds in delivering a high-quality anthology that manages to offer a lot to both the collector and the less intense psychedelic fan, though it's by no means the cream of British psychedelia. There are only two famous hit records, for one thing, and even those, Arthur Brown's "Fire" and the Status Quo's "Pictures of Matchstick Men," are represented by a previously unreleased alternate version and a BBC recording, respectively. Many of the leading acts of the genre are missing, from the Beatles, Pink Floyd, and Procol Harum through the more psychedelic-oriented tracks by Cream, Traffic, the Yardbirds, and numerous other U.K. acts. Also, the cross-licensing isn't as extensive as it could be, though it's not as heavily reliant on tracks controlled by the Sanctuary Records Group as many other comps on the Castle label are.

There's a lot of interesting stuff here, though, ranging from precious twee fantasy-laden pop-psych and freakbeat to psychedelia on the verge of making a transition to hard rock and progressive rock, even though some of the songs are fairly average and even generic British psychedelia. Some of the cuts -- Winston's Fumbs' "Snow White," the Buzz's "You're Holding Me Down," the Peep Show's "Mazy," the Kult's "No Home Today," Paper Blitz Tissue's "Boy Meets Girl," and Lord Sutch's strange "The Cheat" -- rate as some of the best obscure recordings in the entire genre. Also, a lot of major artists -- including Donovan, the Kinks, the Nice, Julie Driscoll with Brian Auger & the Trinity, the Small Faces, Marc Bolan, the Incredible String Band, Jethro Tull, Soft Machine, and Humble Pie -- are heard on the box set, though in every instance, they're represented by some of their more obscure recordings, often taken from B-sides, BBC sessions, or demos (and, in Jethro Tull's instance, the debut 1968 single on which they were billed as Jethro Toe, "Sunshine Day"). There are also a bunch of selections that feature big names in unfamiliar guises, like the tracks by Noel Redding's band Fat Mattress, the quasi-supergroup Santa Barbara Machine Head (with Ron Wood and Jon Lord), Episode Six (with future members of Deep Purple), the Bystanders (who evolved into Man), and the Beatstalkers (whose "Silver Tree Top School for Boys" was written by David Bowie, who never recorded the tune himself).

Yes, there's a touch of collector elitism at play in some of the choices. A few superior songs -- like the Smoke's "My Friend Jack" (a hit only in Germany) and the End's "Loving Sacred Loving" (co-written by Bill Wyman) -- by acts that aren't exactly international household names are represented by yet more obscure, and arguably inferior (though undeniably rarer), alternate versions. As compensation, though, even collectors who think they have everything are bound to come across items they don't have or were only barely aware of, like Lomax Alliance's effervescent and previously unreleased "The Golden Lion" (including Jackie Lomax), one of the highlights of the whole collection. There's also a superb 48-page booklet featuring wise and witty liner notes by David Wells, perhaps the top expert on all things British psychedelic. It all adds up to a worthwhile addition to the psychedelic aficionado's collection, though it's neither as comprehensive nor as killer as the best such four-CD anthology of obscure British psychedelia could be.

Does this interest you? Please give me some feedback! Make a comment !

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