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Hey there everyone. How’s it going? Good, I hope. I’ll be honest, things have been a little tough for me of late, but I’m not here to moan to you all about my life and that’s certainly not why you are reading the ol’ Sorry State Newsletter. What I will say is that finding the joy in things has been difficult and it’s especially difficult finding the words to describe records. I’ve struggled to find the right inspiration and then subsequent words to articulate how certain records make me feel etc. I may or may not be suffering from depression and general anxiety blah, blah, blah, but I do still listen to music. Lol. All day long, really. Records truly are my salvation. My best friends who are always there for me. Although sometimes finding the right one to play to suit the mood can take effort. I stare at thousands of records and can’t find one to play. And I do have thousands. Another aspect of writing about records that I struggle with is the feeling that it’s all been said before and better by someone else. Sometimes within the Sorry State collective. I’m not a natural writer and often stare at a blank screen for a good while trying to come up with just a single sentence. In addition, I’m not a bragger and don’t like to flex that much about records I own. Not that I have a collection full of crazy rare and big-ticket items, but I have a few. Being a DJ also trained me to keep my cards close to my chest, as it were. You can’t give away all your secrets. Of course, in this internet information age nothing is a secret anymore but there was a time when the only way to hear and know about stuff was to go to events, visit record shops, read music magazines, exchange information with fellow nerds and make a bit of an effort. Getting to even hear rare records was a task, let alone owning them. Now you can hear something for the first time and a minute later know everything about the record and possibly even buy a copy. All from the comfort of your own commode. I’m veering into old man shaking his fist at the sun territory here, but you get the point.
With all that being said, I would like to talk about records with you. I have been playing a CD compilation in the car this week and it’s one of my favorites. It probably has repeat played a half dozen times. The tunes themselves have been some of my most loved of the genre for years since first discovering them. The collection is called Hallucinations: Psychedelic Pop Nuggets From The WEA Vaults and I would like to recommend it to you as my pick for this week’s newsletter. The CD collection came out in 2004 in the US with a CD and vinyl edition seeing a UK release the following year. Subsequently, for Record Store Day in 2016 a vinyl repress was made but with not nearly as fetching cover art. The original CD cover even sports a rotating pinwheel as a nice touch. Note the UK vinyl edition is titled differently. It’s called My Mind Goes High there.
For those of you unaware, this collection compiles twenty-four singles (mostly) that were released on Warner Brothers, Reprise and their sub-labels in addition to others that have since fallen under the WEA umbrella. The tunes all came out in the golden mid to late 1960s era and are almost all by American artists. Musically, it does exactly what it says on the tin. Provides 24 awesome psychedelic pop nuggets. As it is a legit compilation and not a bootleg, it also provides the tunes in excellent sound quality and the liner notes by Andrew Sandoval are detailed and informative with plenty of artist photos, label scans and other related artifacts. Not that I am necessarily opposed to the odd grey area psych and garage compilation. They can be the only way to hear some rare sides. This one though is beautifully put together in the grand tradition of the original Nuggets compilation. If you dug that one, then you’ll dig this one.
My interest in music from the 1960s has always been present. After all, I was born then but during the 1980s and 1990s it seemed like the flood gates opened with so many obscure and unknown records being made available through compilations and getting talked about in music papers and magazines and within the scenes that played these records. Every day, it seemed that a new artist and record was introduced to folks like me who were like sponges, eager to soak as much in as possible. Over the years of collecting, I became aware of most of the artists on our collection here and have even got my hands on about half of the twenty-four tracks. Some of them, though, are rare and quite expensive. Based on a multitude of reasons that cause such things. Each one has their unique story. Among the obscure acts and records represented here, there are some recognizable names that most should know. The Monkees being the most obvious. Their contribution comes from their psych movie Head with the Porpoise Song. Another popular group on here is The Association who had a string of pop hits and albums during the 60s. Their sound was safe for the most part, but they were capable of interpreting slightly darker and edgier material. The song chosen for this compilation is titled Pandora’s Golden Heebie Jeebies and it’s great. I’ve had it as a DJ spin for years as it is easy and cheap to find and always surprises people when they hear it and find out who it is. The song incorporates some interesting instrumentation, and the lyrics are a step above the usual found in pop songs.
The title track Hallucinations comes from a guy called Baker Knight and it’s a brilliant cut, perfectly setting us up for the music to follow. He was a song writer mostly, penning songs for Ricky Nelson and Dino, Desi and Billy among others. His career began back in the 1950s however, when he fronted a rockabilly band. By the time of cutting Hallucinations in 1967, he was in his mid-thirties.
Also on here is a track from Kim Fowley called Strangers From The Sky about aliens that has a part that sounds eerily similar to the Close Encounters theme. John Williams had to have heard this and been influenced, whether consciously or not. Take a listen and see what you think. I know Fowley isn’t a great human being and cancelled, but you can’t argue he was behind a ton of great music.
Ending out the set, we get the cut Smell Of Incense from The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. A great group with a great name and so many fab tunes to their name. We recently got a copy of their first LP here at Sorry State, a nice mono promo actually. I love these guys and I heartily recommend you look into their story and music. Incense was covered by the band Southwest F.O.B. who had a hit with it.
There isn’t a duff track on here and you’ll have a lot of fun listening to the rest of the collection and discovering some new personal faves. Good luck trying to find originals of some of these records and if you do, be prepared to cough up the dough. Some are well into the three-figure territory by this point.
Thanks for reading and remember it’s a nugget if you dug it. I stole that line from the liner notes. Lol. See you next time. Peace - Dom