Showing posts with label bands. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bands. Show all posts

15 March 2024

Moby Grape


Columbia Records promotional photo, 1967.
L-R: Skip Spence, Jerry Miller, Bob Mosley, Peter Lewis, Don Stevenson


Moby Grape is an American rock band founded in 1966 as part of San Francisco's psychedelic music scene. The band actually had elements of rock, folk music, pop, blues, and country music.

Their name came from a joke that played off Herman Melville's Moby Dick: What's big and purple and lives in the sea? Moby Grape. member Don Stevenson says that it was a time of rather silly, nonsensical band names like Strawberry Alarm Clock, Electric Prunes, and 13th Floor Elevator.

They were one of the few groups in which all members were lead vocalists and songwriters. Before they had recorded, they had played many club gigs with all original songs. 

A trivia bit about the 1967 debut album is that the band photo has Don Stevenson making a middle finger gesture over a washboard. It is airbrushed off later cover and poster photos making the original album quite collectible.

There are several collections of their "best of" songs and reissues of their original albums.

In 2018 a detailed biography - What's Big And Purple And Lives In The Ocean?: The Moby Grape Story by Cam Cobb was published.


In the podcast below, host Mike Stax talks to drummer/songwriter Don Stevenson and Moby Grape biographer Cam Cobb about the band’s formation, name and the making of their 967 debut album.

04 March 2024

Electric Prunes

 


Electric Prunes are an American psychedelic rock band, formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1965. Incorporating psychedelia and elements of early electronic rock, the band's sound was marked by innovative recording techniques with fuzz-toned guitars and oscillating sound effects. 

Guitarist Ken Williams' and singer James Lowe's called the sound "free-form garage music" that set them apart from many of their contemporaries.

According to Lowe, the name Electric Prunes started off as a joke, but he eventually convinced other band members to keep it, saying, "It's the one thing everyone will remember. It's not attractive, and there's nothing sexy about it, but people won't forget it."

The band was signed to Reprise Records in 1966 and released their first single, "Ain't It Hard", in the latter part of the year. Their first album, The Electric Prunes, included the band's two nationally charting songs, "I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)" and "Get Me to the World on Time". With the appearance of their second album, Underground, the band was more free to create their own material. However, the original group disbanded by 1968 when they proved unable to record the innovative and complex arrangements by David Axelrod on the albums Mass in F Minor and Release of an Oath. Both albums were released under the band's name, the rights to which were owned by their record producer David Hassinger, but were largely performed by other musicians. Several of the original band members reconvened in 1999 and began recording again. The band still performs occasionally, although the only remaining original member is lead singer James Lowe.

They produced albums and got FM airplay but did not really have hit singles.


Mass in F Minor is their third studio album and explains pretty well why they were not a mainstream rock band. Released in 1968, it consists of a musical setting of the mass sung in Latin and Greek and arranged in the psychedelic style of the band, and was written and arranged by David Axelrod.


09 February 2024

King Crimson

 


King Crimson was a rock band founded in Dorset, England in 1969. The band has been labeled as a progressive rock group (prog-rock) but included influences and instrumentation from jazz, folk music, classical and experimental music, psychedelic rock, hard rock, heavy metal, new wave, gamelan, and electronica.

The band has been influential on many contemporary musical artists and has a cult following despite the fact that they had little radio or music video airplay.

Founded by Robert Fripp, Michael Giles, Greg Lake, Ian McDonald and Peter Sinfield, the band initially focused on a dramatic sound layered with Mellotron.

The band's lineup centered on guitarist Robert Fripp, but has changed over the years with 18 musicians and two lyricists. The debut lineup of the band was influential (and well-received by critics) but short-lived, lasting for just over one year. The band was later fronted by Adrian Belew.

In the Court of the Crimson King (subtitled An Observation by King Crimson) is their debut studio album released on 10 October 1969 by Island Records. The album is one of the earliest and most influential of the progressive rock genre, where the band combined the musical influences that rock music was founded upon with elements of jazz, classical, and symphonic music. The album reached number five on the UK Albums Chart and number 28 on the US Billboard 200, where it was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America.

Barry Godber, a computer programmer friend of Sinfield's, painted the design for the iconic first album cover (shown above). He used his own face, viewed through a mirror, as the model. Godber died shortly after the album's release and it was his only album cover. The original painting is now owned by Robert Fripp.

Several sources (including the band website at http://www.elephant-talk.com) give the band's name origin as coming from the original lyricist Peter Sinfield. Sinfield says, "The name King Crimson was mine. I wanted something like Led Zeppelin, something with a bit of power to it. Anything better than Giles, Giles, and Fripp. King Crimson had arrogance to it."

King Crimson can be considered a synonym for Beelzebub, the prince of demons, which is an anglicized form of the Arabic phrase B'il Sabab. Fripp has said that the Arabic means "the man with an aim" but it literally means "with a cause".

A more common etymology of "Beelzebub" is that it is Hebrew for "Lord of the Flies." In John Milton's Paradise Lost, Beelzebub was Satan's chief lieutenant among the fallen angels. He is often portrayed as a red (crimson) figure and is the King of the Underworld.

ALBUMS

05 February 2024

Lynyrd Skynyrd

 Lynyrd Skynyrd is an American rock band, formed in Jacksonville, Florida in the summer of 1964. A group of teenagers, Ronnie Van Zant, Allen Collins, and Gary Rossington, formed the band and called it "The Noble Five."

The band went through a number of name changes and some personnel changes and were known as "My Backyard" and "The Swampers."

The group won a local Battle of the Bands contest in 1968 and got the opening slot on several Southeast shows for the California-based psychedelic rock band Strawberry Alarm Clock.

In 1970, Van Zant wanted a new name for the band, and after trying out "One Percent" and "The Noble Five," they settled on "Leonard Skinnerd."

The name was taken from a physical-education teacher at Robert E. Lee High School named Leonard Skinner. Skinner was known for being harsh on boys with long hair. Before they released their first album, they changed the spelling to Lynyrd Skynyrd.

The band became prominent in 1973 with the hit song "Free Bird", which received national airplay, eventually reaching #19 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts. It has become a rock and roll anthem today.

They achieved worldwide recognition before three members and one road crew member died in an airplane crash in 1977.

The band reformed in 1987 for a reunion tour with lead singer Ronnie Van Zant's younger brother Johnny as the front man. Lynyrd Skynyrd continues to tour and record. Of its original members, only Gary Rossington remained with the band as of 2010. 

The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006.

24 January 2024

Strawbs


 
STRAWBS (AKA The Strawbs) English rock band founded in 1964 as a bluegrass group. However, they gradually moved into folk rock, progressive rock, and even a flirtation with glam rock.

They have gone through many different member lineups, but their long-time leader and most active songwriter is guitarist and singer Dave Cousins (guitar, dulcimer, banjo, vocals). I discovered them through other similar British bands of the early 1970s such as Fairport Convention, Fotheringay and Steeleye Span. An early line up of Strawbs included vocalist Sandy Denny who was later lead singer of Fairport Convention and Fotheringay.

When they formed as a bluegrass band in 1964, they used the name the Strawberry Hill Boys. This is when the founding members were at St Mary's Teacher Training College which was located at Strawberry Hill in London. (No connection to an American cheap amd popular wine of the era called Strawberry Hill.)  For a 1967 concert, they needed a shorter name to fit an onstage display, so they just shortened theirs to the Strawbs.

They are best known for their hit anthem "Part of the Union", which reached number two in the UK charts in February 1973, and "Lay Down" a popular FM radio progressive rock hit. from the same LP.




I saw the band on a tour they did with Supertramp (promoting Crime of the Century) while Strawbs were promoting their Hero and Heroine album.



The band has remained active in the 21st century recording and touring in two lineups. The acoustic band is with Cousins, Lambert and Cronk. There is also the entirely original Hero and Heroine/Ghosts electric line-up from 1974 of Cousins, Lambert, Cronk, Coombes and Hawken.

They werefeatured on the blue cruise in February 2019 along with Justin Hayward, The Zombies, Todd Rundgren, Dave Mason, Steve Hackett, Alan Parsons, Procol Harum, Al Stewart, Wishbone Ash and (inexplicably) Poco.

Their official website is www.strawbsweb.co.uk

20 January 2024

Strawberry Alarm Clock

 

I have a soft spot for the Strawberry Alarm Clock. They were known as a psychedelic rock band formed in 1967 in California. They had 5 songs that charted but are best known for their 1967 hit single "Incense and Peppermints." The song reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 during the week ending November 25, 1967.

Though you will find them categorized as acid rock, psychedelic pop, and sunshine pop, their first album was decidedly POP. My 1967 friends considered them to be phony psychedelic.

A history of the band written by member George Bunnell stated that "The Strawberry Alarm Clock came about by parts of two bands, Thee Sixpence and Waterfyrd Traene, morphing into one."

“I know there’s been a lot of different stories about how we got our name, and I think I’ve heard them all,” said Bunnell explained in a 2012 interview. “The most popular one is, we were all sitting around, looking at Billboard, put a finger on a song, and picked ‘Strawberry Fields Forever," but that record wasn’t even released at the time we started calling ourselves the Strawberry Alarm Clock. Our record company kind of picked our name for us. They wanted to use ‘strawberry,’ because I guess it was just a sign of the times. Peace, love and strawberries! So, that was already picked out.”

The “alarm clock” part came later, he said. Members began to throw around names that would fit with “strawberry” until a fateful incident chose the name for them. “We were over at Mark Weitz’s house one day, and his alarm clock suddenly fell down and broke,” Bunnell said. “And we looked at that, and decided ‘alarm clock.’ So, we called up our record company, and told them we were going to use the name the Strawberry Alarm Clock.”

During the Strawberry Alarm Clock's short lifespan, it saw many lineup changes.

SAC also made two notable appearances in films. In the 1968 Jack Nicholson movie Psych-Out, they played several songs including "Incense and Peppermints", "Rainy Day Mushroom Pillow", and "The World's on Fire". "The Pretty Song from Psych-Out" was re-recorded by a San Fernando Valley garage band, the Storybook, for the film's soundtrack album, but the Strawberry Alarm Clock's version was heard in the film. 

In 1970, the band appeared in the Russ Meyer cult classic film Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. By this time the band's popularity had waned considerably, but the band continued on for some time, touring the South in 1970 and 1971 with a then-unknown Florida band called Lynyrd Skynyrd opening for them. In the latter part of 1971, the group, now without a record label and with internal conflicts over musical direction, opted to disband. 

There are many compilation versions of their 4 studio albums, including all 4 albums on 2 CDs. and a vinyl Best Of album.

Their studio albums:

    Incense and Peppermints (1967, Uni Records)
    Wake Up...It's Tomorrow (1968, Uni Records)
    The World in a Sea Shell (1968, Uni Records)
    Good Morning Starshine (1969, Uni Records)
    Wake Up Where You Are (2012, Global Recording Artists)


 


24 October 2023

Collective Soul


Collective Soul - 2016 in Camden, New Jersey  Link

Collective Soul is an American rock band that consists of the brothers Ed (lead vocalist) and Dean Roland (rhythm guitarist), Will Turpin (bassist), Johnny Rabb (drummer), and Jesse Triplett (lead guitarist). Formed in 1992, the original lineup consisted of the Roland brothers, Turpin, guitarist Ross Childress, and drummer Shane Evans. 

In 1993, Roland's song "Shine" from the Rising Storm label release of Hints, Allegations, and Things Left Unsaid became an underground hit and created a new band lineup.

Ed Roland was reading Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead and came across the phrase "collective soul." In the novel, "collective soul" is a threat to the main character's sense of individualism. Roland has said that the choice was not in support of "Ayn Rand, objectivism, egoism, or anything...we just dug the name."






05 October 2023

Fountains of Wayne

Fountains of Wayne is a Grammy-nominated American power pop band. The group was formed by songwriters Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood. They met as freshmen at Williams College and began playing music together. After college, Collingwood formed the Mercy Buckets in Boston and Schlesinger formed Ivy in New York City, but they connected again in 1996 and formed Fountains of Wayne.

Chris and Adam -  Fountains of Wayne

Chris and Adam performing in New Jersey (2007)


The band name was taken from a garden and lawn ornament store in Wayne, New Jersey by that name. Adam Schlesinger grew up in nearby Montclair. The store can be seen in The Sopranos episode "Another Toothpick" but it closed in 2009.



The entrance to the kitschy Fountains of Wayne store in NJ (2007)

Their biggest hit single was "Stacy's Mom." The single was powered by a popular music video, directed by Chris Applebaum, about an adolescent boy's attempts to get closer to the mom of his girlfriend Stacy. The mom was played by model Rachel Hunter. The clever video includes allusions to the 1962 film Lolita and 1982's Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

Adam Schlesinger says "Stacy's Mom" was a tribute to a band they liked, The Cars. The Cars' song "My Best Friend's Girl" has a similar instrumental intro. Cars frontman Ric Ocasek thought that the intro was a sample from his song "Just What I Needed" but the band says they performed it in the studio. Ocasek was asked to be in the video for the song but declined. (Wikipedia)

The band stopped recording but toured for a while after the album Sky Full of Holes.

Collingwood recorded an album as the singer/guitarist in Look Park

Schlesinger went on to record with Tinted Windows. This "supergroup" was formed by guitarist James Iha of The Smashing Pumpkins, singer Taylor Hanson of Hanson, Bun E. Carlos of Cheap Trick and Schlesinger. Adam also wrote many songs for other artists and for TV, Broadway and movies. Adam Schlesinger died of complications due to the COVID-19 virus in April 2020.