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(With no place to go but implode)

I ran a C.W. Burpo broadcast the other night featuring one of his rants masquerading as a sermon. I also stumbled across an interview he conducted in 1969 with Congressman John H. Buchanan (R-Alabama), which is always a good reminder that there has never been a historic shortage of hysteria, fear, death, hate and mythical accusations coming from the unhinged sector of our society.

Even in 1969:

Burpo: “Isn’t it comforting to have Secretary Laird in the Defense Department office instead of Robert “Strange”, emphasis on Strange, McNamara? (laughter)

Buchanan: “Yes sir, I cannot tell you how much better I sleep at night since this is the case. I felt a little like . .. I may have said this before, but . .when they were discussing the war over in the Middle East, said that we ought to swap the Israelis four hundred F-111 aircraft for one one-eyed General (Moishe Dayan), and another got up and said ‘ yes, he’d agree to that and he’d also throw in Mister McNamara” (laughter)

Burpo: “That’s good . . “

What's interesting about this particular interview is how Burpo goads and manipulates a rather reluctant (at times) Buchanan into buying all his views, not that he probably didn't anyway. But judging by his record, John Buchanan hid out quite a bit, preferring not to make many waves. His 17 years in the House produced a scant few paragraphs on Wikipedia and not too much else. Burpo, on the other hand, had enough bluster for several people - but even that didn't prevent his almost total obscurity shortly after his death.

Such is the life expectancy of the shrill and devious.

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(Noel Redding - life after The Experience was different)

Noel Redding is probably best known these days as the Bass player in the Jimi Hendrix Experience. In 1969, when Hendrix went off in different directions, Redding, and drummer Mitch Mitchell would go off and form other bands. Redding with Fat Matress (which he'd formed a year earlier as a sort of side project), and later The Noel Redding Band. And Mitchell with Ramatam. Neither achieved the astronomic heights during the Experience days, but perhaps it was the pressure and the expectation that made anything less than a Hendrix endeavor a dismal failure.

That just wasn't the case - both musicians were major talents in their own right and in the case of Noel Redding, Fat Mattress was a band that made some great music throughout its brief tenure.

This track, I Don't Mind comes off their first album. Admittedly, the songs are good but the production isn't. I remember when the American version of this album came out via Atlantic, the sound was muddy and the vocals sounded distant and badly mixed. The original version on Polydor in the UK fared a lot better, but it still lacked a dynamic sound, which was badly needed for a band like this.

At any rate, it's all hindsight. Fat Mattress were a good band that didn't get good breaks. But then, the barre was set pretty high.

And sorry for the fundraising intrusion but . . .the archives need shoes.

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(Last spotted going for silly money - but you get to hear it for free)

Psychedelia from Australia tonight. One of the most obscure and subsequently legendary bands purportedly from the Adelaide area during the 1967-1969 period, Hugo is almost completely unknown here in the States. A trio, they were likened to The Easybeats and Masters Apprentices (also Oz bands). This track, Hey! Watch Out represents their only single, released in 1969.

Other than that, they are something of a high-voltage mystery.

Play loud - play often.

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(Early circular for Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks - even then you couldn't quite put your finger on them)

Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks were a band that pretty much defied description, but have had a large and loyal following ever since they first formed in 1968. Still playing and recording, The Hot Licks have gone through a lot of incarnations since their initial breakup in 1971, but the inimitable style of Dan Hicks keeps on going.

So here's a little something mellow for a Thursday night. This track, Slow Movin' is off their first album "Original Recordings"their only album released on Epic in 1969.

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(Apple - Only album released in 1969 - dismal failure, but history had other plans)

There have been those bands whose first and only album came and went unnoticed at the time, but years later achieved Holy Grail status.

This was the case with Apple, a UK band that started in 1968 and promptly disbanded in 1969 and whose sole album "An Apple A Day" became one of the most sought after by collectors for years. Since they achieved no airplay and minimal sales, their reputation grew strictly by word of mouth and from the people who held on to their original vinyl copies like glue.

It's easy to see why. For anyone with a penchant for Psychedelia, Apple is right up your street without being too on-the-money. Probably because they were light on gimmicks it made them enduring over the years, and always good for conversation that starts with "I'll bet you never heard this before."

This track, Buffalo Billycan was actually issued as a single (one of several). Luckily for everyone, the album has been reissued on CD in Europe. So you don't have to go into hock to find a copy.

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(Nick Drake - the calming voice for insane times)

Nick Drake, from h is first album for Island, Five Leaves Left in 1969 - River Man.

Just the person to put this past week in perspective.

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(Beneath the posture - afraid of shadows, most living things, life in general)

With all the talk, all the hate and all the posturing going on - not only about the current Health Care debate, but our current state of life and society in general, I was wondering if this was anything new, some new direction our society had suddenly and dangerously taken.

Regrettably, no. As is evidenced in this documentary, part of the Second Sunday series produced for NBC Radio on March 3, 1969 - we've been a country fed on fear, hate and paranoia for a very long time. It appears to have cropped up in our DNA.

Frank McGee (Narrator): “Have we had time to become, or do we care to become something other than a collection of irresponsible individuals, having in common little more than a toleration, if not an endorsement of violence?”

Arthur Schlesinger Jr. “We are today the most frightening people on this planet. The ghastly things we do to our own people, the ghastly things we do to other people, these must at least compel us to look searchingly at ourselves and our society before hatred and violence rushes on to more evil, and finally tear our nation apart. . . . we cannot blame the epidemic of murder at home on deranged and solitary individuals, separate from the rest of us. For these individuals are plainly weak and suggestible men stamped by our society with a birth rite of hatred and a compulsion toward violence. We must recognize, I believe that the evil is in us, that it springs from some dark intolerable tension in our history and our institutions. It is almost as though some primal curse had been fixed on our nation. We are a violent people with a violent history, and the instinct for violence has seeped into the bloodstream of our national life.”

And considering 1969 was a comparatively good year in retrospect.

Forty years on it's only gotten stranger - or maybe the microscope is looking more closely.

In any event . . .

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(Junior's Eyes - The best known unknown band of the 60's)

Most people have probably never heard of Junior's Eyes. It's not a name that comes rolling off the tongue or conjures up some instant recognition. But if I told you they were David Bowie's backup back and played on Space Oddity and The Man Who Sold The World, then you'd at least have some idea. They never toured the U.S. and only had one album (their first) issued by A&M in 1969. No hit singles, no airplay to speak of and not given over to rave reviews with the press when it first came out. It's that curious mixture of psych, progressive and hard rock - not really settling in on any one thing that led to nonplussed assessments.

Some bands don't age well. Junior's Eyes isn't one of them. In retrospect they had a lot more to offer than they were given credit for and this track, "Playtime" gives ample evidence.

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(There goes the neighborhood)

(John Amato: I thought it would be fun to hear actual news reports of the Moon Walk from 1969. Gordon's collection of historical events is truly amazing. Promoted from Newstalgia)

I suppose if you aren't aware we're sitting in the middle of the 40th anniversary of our landing on the Moon, you are probably living in an isolation tank, or unconscious - or both.

So anything I have to add to this mix might be construed as redundant.

That said, it's difficult not to sift through some 80 hours of sound recordings from the day and not get a little choked up, remembering all the anticipation and nail biting that went on.

You have to remember that, prior to this day in 1969, everyone's concept of the moon was this large ball in the sky that people wrote songs about. Funny, they don't write those songs any more. The romance of the great unknown has been popped, as it were. Romance got a big footprint on it.

Only a year earlier the best it became was an orbit around the moon with Apollo 8, with still the wistful romance very much in place.

From July 20th on, the world and our place in the universe changed, The Great Mysterious had been broken and there was no turning back.

Continue reading »

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(The Doors - someone wondered if in a hundred years we'd still be playing "Light My Fire" - so far, so good.)

I know this particular show has been bootlegged quite a bit; it's the PBS program "Critique" from May 23, 1969 which features The Doors performing in the studio, an interview with the band and a roundtable discussion between Richard Goldstein, Pat Kennealy, Rosko and Al Aronowitz.

My source is from NET (pre-PBS) and is probably as close to the original recordings as possible. The tape box says April 29, 1969, so I am assuming this is when the copy was made and not the original air date. Truths to tell, I haven't heard the bootlegs of this recording so I have no frame of reference with which to judge. All I know is, the sound is excellent and, if you haven't heard it before, pretty exciting. This was done shortly after the famous Miami bust and it's discussed during the round table portion. The interview with Morrison is great - the round table discussion afterwards is . . . well . . . interesting. You be the judge.

As for the performances themselves, it's classic Doors.

So here is "Critique" complete, uncut and exactly as it was aired in May 1969.

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(L-R: Donald Rumsfeld, Pres. Ford, Rumsfeld's Trusty Assistant Dick Cheney)

Back in 1969, Donald Rumsfeld went from being a member of Congress to becoming a political appointment of Nixon's to head the rather Orwellian sounding Office Of Economic Opportunity. It would seem to be reasonably harmless, but in 1970 Rumsfeld added Dick Cheney to the mix his assistant. Several different versions emerge as to what exactly Cheney's role was and how he got there. Like everything, it's shrouded in shadows and mystery. But suffice to say, things started changing shortly after.

Here is an interview with Rumsfeld on Face The Nation from December 7, 1969, a few months before the entrance of Cheney, but noteworthy for the fact that Rumsfeld never lost the gift for mangling a perfectly good sentence.