"Season of the Witch"

Donovan - "Season of the Witch" (1966)

I have no memory of the Nicolas Cage movie of the same name that came out last year.



That hack down on the electric guitar sounds scratchy and scary doesn't it? And the electric organ sitting on that quiet drone just makes it creepier. Donovan's voice gets more insistent and angry as the chorus grows near until he is very nearly begging us for help, the time has drawn neigh and the Season is upon us all.

Donovan was a Scottish folk singer/songwriter who had a lot of success both at home and in America. His "Catch the Wind" from 1965 is a perfect encapsulation of love unrevealed and unrequited. For his third album, he and producer Mickie Most grabbed local musicians to play a more electric version of folk. Instead of continuing to sound like 'Britain's Bob Dylan' (as he often was called) what emerged was early psychedelic rock, including many of the things that would come to be associated with the genre. Namely, impenetrable lyrics and long drawn out instrumental jam style solos. The song, also like Dylan before, was longer than a normal pop song.But Donovan deserves to be remembered as more than just a Dylan follower.

The song is a great example of early psychedelia, and it has been used in media to denote mystic happenings as well as a song of the times. It's been covered many times, to great effect, but my favorites include Dr. John, Lou Rawls, The Strangelings, Joan Jett, and of course Vanilla Fudge.

"Electricity"

Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band - "Electricity" (1967)

Ry Cooder is one of the guitar players here. We've mentioned him before as performer here and producer here.



It's electric blues played by people who don't care if you like them or not. That's the best explanation someone ever gave me for Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band, a group that has a lot of chops, a number of very vocal fans, and no commercial appeal at all. Their third album Trout Mask Replica, released in 1969 is regularly placed on best of all time lists, but it was still not a hit. This track is off of their debut album, before they were ignored by the establishment, before they were dropped by multiple labels, before they toned down their sound to try to sell. The album is called Safe as Milk, as if the band knew that there would be problems.

As for the song itself,  I really like the bass a lot. The guitar and sitar work is a great jam and the drums kick along as well, but that bass beat is great. There is also a theramin on the track, weirding it up a little. Just about the only thing unlikeable about this song is the primary singer's voice. It sounds like a drunk bum they found on the street and let him say whatever he wanted and then based the song on it. Now by the end, the whole song kind of gets away from them , but as far as fade outs go I've heard worse. The song is a great late 60s groove that gets a little experimental but is over all great. The thing is, on other songs, the vocalist sounds fine, this was something that they did for this track alone, and it suffers for it.

"Good Vibrations"

The Beach Boys - "Good Vibrations" (1966)

According to Paul McCartney, this song inspired "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "A Day in The Life". It did not inspire Marky Mark or his Funky Bunch.



I can't really pick this piece apart for you it's too big. At the time, its detractors and fans both claimed you had to listen to it multiple times to really get it. I can tell you that it has at least four distinct keyboard instruments including a tack piano and Hammond organ. It uses old instruments like the cello and cutting edge instruments like the Electro-Theremin at the same time. You can hear both of those instruments at the same time with no other distraction for a few seconds at ten seconds from the end of the song. The Electro-Theremin was a prototype instrument built to mimic the sound of the theremin, but with more precise control. It's the hum whistle you can hear throughout the song. It was used on two other tracks by The Beach Boys and the opening theme to My Favorite Martian. All together, six members of the band sang vocals, combing to form a layered nuanced pop masterpiece.

There's a lot of well known history associated with this track. in 1965 the Beatles released Rubber Soul, one of the most ambitious Pop albums of its time. Then in December of that year they released the double A side single "We Can Work it Out"/"Day Tripper" Brian Wilson, the driving force behind the Beach Boys song writing felt he was up to the challenge and wrote and performed on and produced the album Pet Sounds, released in May of 1966; universally recognized as the peak of the Beach Boys. Immediately people compared it to Rubber Soul, and for a while, The Beach Boys were considered the more creative band. It included the songs "God Only Knows" and "Wouldn't It be Nice". They were released summer of 1966 as singles off of the album. The Beatles had released "Paperback Writer" as a single not attached to any album just earlier. Wilson was spending months on the production and recording of a new track, he has missed the deadline for Pet Sounds but continued to work on it. He was known to be sinking into depression and alcohol and drug use during the time, but the work on this track is said to have helped and hurt that depression. Pet Sounds was The Beach Boys answer to Rubber Soul, Wilson wanted to pull ahead with this amazing song. Instead, in August of 1966, just four weeks after The Beach Boys most recent single, The Beatles released the "Elanor Rigby" single, and the Revolver album at the same time. It had been eight months since Rubber Soul. During that entire time Wilson had been crafting "Good Vibrations" and The Beatles had created fourteen tracks, and recorded an album that rose to the top of the charts and knocked Pet Sounds out of the 'Most Ambitious' slot it held onto for such a short time.

Wilson stopped working on "Good Vibrations" soon thereafter. When it was released in October, all the hard work was vindicated, the months of work recording almost 20 different performers on at least a dozen different instruments and six part harmony turned the song into a huge hit. The band's record label decided that the cost was justified and sent Wilson back into the studio to record a new album. Stressed out, strung out, and musically challenged led Wilson to begin recording Smile. During the first part of 1967 everything was going well, with the layered production looking like it was going to be a huge success. The 'summer of love' was burgeoning, and the new sound of this album, following in the footsteps of "Good Vibrations" was going to keep The Beach Boys relevant. Then in April, Paul McCartney played Wilson an early cut of "A Day in The Life" from The Beatles upcoming Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. It broke him. The rest of the band wasn't interested in the experimental direction was going, tension with the record label was growing, and Wilson was burning out. In May he stopped production on the album. In June, Sgt. Pepper's was released to world wide acclaim. In September the heavily stripped down and re-recorded Beach Boys album Smiley Smile was released to confusion and disinterest. Wilson slowly lost control of the band, and the band slowly slipped from being considered at the forefront of music, to being a throwback/nostalgia band.

"Champagne Supernova"

Oasis - Champagne Supernova (1995)

Happy Boxing Day!



The last track off of their enormous hit album (What's the Story) Morning Glory?, and the last single released from that album as well. This was the biggest song the band had, and seemed like just a highpoint with many more to come. Instead this song signaled the slow decline from one of the biggest acts in the world, to over hyped but still impressive, to good but not great, to basically forgotten in the US, to basically ignored, to breaking up.

The lyrics are notoriously confusing, with writer/guitarist Noel Gallagher admitting that he was "out of it" and the lyrics "might be" about reincarnation. Whatever the song is about Liam Gallagher sings with a controlled passion that keeps the song interesting for it's full length. Musically the song is 7:30 minutes long; a soaring psychedelic journey. It starts with water lapping at the beach and gently grows to a languid pop song volume with mellotron droning, acoustic guitar providing a percussive hit, and really short electric guitar quips. The drums eventually work their way in, driving the previously meandering pace. Within a few moments the volume picks up and we are in a full rocker. Around 3:00 we get a brief guitar solo that may actually be Paul Weller who was friends with the band and has a lead guitar credit on this track, as does Noel. The song builds back up again and as it fades at 4:30 you assume the song is about to find it's way out. Instead we get Beatle-esque non-lyrical harmonies floating along with rocking guitar solos over the mellotron and bass guitar sea. Then back to a fade out chorus. the song sounds like it could end again at 7:00, but holds on for a few more seconds.

"Happenings Ten Years Time Ago"

The Yardbirds - Happenings Ten Years Time Ago (1966)

Hard to find a good quality version of this audio. Hope this one works.



So let's get this out of the way right now. Yes, this is the Yardbirds, the band that had at least four different lead guitarists during it's brief 5 year run. Three of those guitarists went on to international super-stardom: Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page. No known recordings exist of Clapton playing with either of the others, but there was a brief period of time (June-October 1966) when Beck and Page were both in the band. Some of that time Jimmy Page was playing bass, other times he played lead while future Led Zeppelin cohort John Paul Jones played bass. Only one single had all three of these giants playing together; Jones on bass and Page and Beck on dual lead guitar. This is it.

This isn't quite "Acid Rock" as there are long instrumental breaks, but the song is short and there are a lot of lyrics. Think of it as proto-Acid. There's a lot of echo on all the vocals. That really adds to the psychedelic effect. The drummer, rhythm guitarist and bassist all keep the song moving along admirably, but the song is clearly in the book for the part at 1:45 where the other instruments head for the back, and Jeff Beck's spoken word part comes along over under and through the dueling guitarists.

"A minha menina"

Os Mutantes - A minha menina (1968)

Brazilian fusion pop!



Os Mutantes (The Mutants) were a Brazilian power trio. Two men, one woman, all three sang, all played instruments, and the band always had lots of guests on their albums. This is off of their first, eponymous album. Influenced by the pop vocals and psychedelic guitar sounds coming out of England and America, they fused it with the native dance rhythms of Brazil.

Lyrically it's a straight love song. She's his girl, he's her boy, and everything is right with the world. Musically the verses are very 60s pop. Vocals that harmonize tightly together over upbeat chords and fast drumming. The chorus has some fat fuzz effects on the guitar, giving us an angry edge to the song, but lyrically there is nothing to back up the anger. It's just a cool effect. The break is really interesting. There's some psychedelic guitars, some acoustic guitar licks, and some vocal noises that sound like hot and heavy breathing to me. Overall it's a fun pop song from a band I'd never heard of but that has fans. Indie act A Band of Bees (or The Bees if you're from the UK) got some early recognition covering this song in 2002 and Beck's 1998 album Mutation was named after the band. And in a hell of a coincidence, (because I just flipped to this song randomly as I usually do) Os Mutantes is apparently a favorite band of David Byrne - who was featured in yesterday's post.

"See Emily Play"

Pink Floyd - See Emily Play (1967)

This is a Psychedelic song by a Psychedelic band. But actually they didn't really care for the song, played it rarely in concert, kept it short, and in fact left the Psychedelic behind just a few short years later, becoming Progressive giants.

Originally, the song was much longer but when cut down to single length, they lost a lot of recorded material. There is a keyboard part after the first chorus that sounds like no instrument I know. Research says that it was a piano, played much slower, that was sped up to fit into that part of the song. There's a lot of psychedelic organ going on after the second chorus courtesy of Richard Wright, plus some just crazy sounding guitar licks from Syd. Just as that ends, the bass tag, before the third verse starts I would swear that's a tuba playing along with the bass, but there is no tuba listed. It's the same bass tag you hear going into each of the verses. I just think it's easiest to hear on the last one. If it's not a tuba, it's one hell of an organ.

The original 4 track master recording is lost and there was very little paperwork done for the song. The engineer and producer both recall using lots of backward taping, reverb, and echo. The echo effect is clear on the backing vocals on the chorus.

It's a very brief pop song, without it, Pink Floyd never would have soared to such popularity, which in turn might have kept Syd sane longer. But then the band wouldn't have hired Gilmour, and then we wouldn't have the classic albums of the 70s. BTW, Bowie's cover is pretty odd as well. Very easy to imagine it performed by the Goblin King Bowie, backed by Henson goblins.