Spring 2012

Bad Vibes is one of my favorite places to find out about new music, posting significant new tracks as well as exclusive interviews with recording artists.   The guys who run it also have really good taste in movies so if yr nextflix cue is running low, stop by there for some inspiration.  When I learned that they were interested in hosting a Preservation Sounds mixtape I was super-excited to get involved.  The concept here is similar to the previous dozen mixtapes I’ve done: everything is pulled directly from vinyl LPs I have dug up at the flea markets and estate sales of Western CT in the past 4 months; digitized in crystal clarity (+ plenty of old dust) via my trusty Benz cartridge and Apogee convertors.   The big difference tho: since this mixtape is ivegotbadvibes #0026, it is available for quick download at the Bad Vibes site: and: it’s been cut together into one seamless springtime jam.  Visit Bad Vibes to download the mixtape.

Follow the link below for detailed track notes and more of the best album art of all time…

READ ON:::1. “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” The G-Stringers of Vassar College.  S/T, Syrinx.  Year Unknown.  As far as I can gather, the G-stringers were sort of a revolving-door student folk-group active at Vassar college in the late fifties thru at least 1968 judging by the songs on this very obscure private-press LP.  The whole album is of a very high-quality; I love ole gospel songs and it’s amazing how they have reharmonized the chord changes in this version, taking a very familiar melody and moving it into a spooky psych-y direction.

2. “Many Rivers to Cross” Harry Nilsson.  ‘Pussycats,’ RCA 1974.  This is the John Lennon-produced Nilsson LP that HN famously broke his throat on; people go on about what a shambling mess it is ETC ETC.  Don’t fall for it!  If you love the early 70s Lennon records, well, here’s yr chance to hear an early 70s Lennon record with Harry Nilsson singin lead vocals.  Well worth checking out.

3. “In My Valley” The Cornbread.  S/T, Mega 1971.  I was deep into a pile of a few thousand mostly Swedish folk and pop LPs in a dark Fairfield basement when I came across this unlikely gem.  The Cornbread were a country/rock/soul group from Arkansas c.1970 that AFAIK only made this one LP; they sound like a funkier Mason Proffit and have some pretty interesting issues-based songwriting themes.

4. “I’ll Hold Out My Hand” The Box Tops. ‘Dimensions,’ Bell 1969.  The Box Tops are well-known both for their own ultrahits as well as for giving us the incredible Alex Chilton, who would go on to create three of the 70s best LPs with Big Star.  This particular song, from their final LP, was written by the great Chip Taylor.  Taylor was responsible for a few of the most memorable moments in 60s pop songwriting: ‘Wild Thing,’ which might be the biggest garage-rock hit of all time, and ‘Angel of the Morning,’ which was highly controversial at the time owing to its one-night-stand theme.  Seems pretty quaint now.  He’s also Angelina Jolie’s uncle btw.  “I’ll hold out my hand” was also cut in memorable fashion by Smith.

5. “One Way” Armageddon Experience.  ‘Jesus Sound Explosion’ Strawberry Creek Productions 1972.  “J S E” was a straightforward faith-music album that was available free to all just by writing to the address on the back of the jacket.  “J S E” also featured Johnny Cash and m’ man Larry Norman.  I just can’t get over the crazy dichotomy between the verse and chorus of this super-gleeful paean to hell+heaven.  Also btw maybe it’s just me but this sounds an awful lot like it started as a re-write of The Remains ‘Don’t Look Back.’

6. “Obscured by Clouds” Pink Floyd.  ‘Obscured by Clouds,’ Harvest 1972.  I really don’t know how I managed to block out the fact that Pink Floyd released a record in between the epic ‘Meddle’ and the timeless ‘DSOTM,’ esp. considering that I worked on Waters’ DSOTM tour for oh what an entire year?  Well PF did in fact release ‘Obscured by Clouds’ in that short interim and it’s a pretty decent record.  This title track in particular.  Dig the excellent krautrock beat.  Hi hats?  Who needs em?

7. “Poison” Bert Jansch. ‘The 1969 Warner-Reprise Record Show’ (originally appeared on ‘Birthday Blues’), Warner-Reprise 1969.  Just an outstanding track from an amazing artist.  All of his music is worth checking out, right up to The Black Swan, which just might be the best new material recorded in the 2000s by a 60’s hero.  I want this drumming on every track that i produce from now on.

8. “I’m Crying” White Chocolate.  S/T, RCA 1973.  Bridgeport CT!  I can’t recall where I dug this up but oh man was i excited to learn that dudes were from BPT back-in-the-day.  Which puts them in the company of Elephant’s Memory and… anyone else?  Great blue-eyed soul/rock jam in the vein of Jackie Blue and Right Down The Line.  If any of you W/C dudes are still in the area, drop us a line…

9. “Something’s Gotten Hold Of My Heart” Terry Reid.  ‘Bang Bang You’re Terry Reid,’ Epic 1968.  I had this playing in the house when E. remarked, ‘What is this?  It sounds like Zeppelin.’  See, E., this is why yr my lady.  Cos you didn’t know this, but Terry Reid is forever (in)famous for being the singer who turned down the job of singing in The new New Yardbirds.  Good record all around.

10. “I Want You” The Beau Brummels.  ‘The Beau Brummels Volume 2,’ Autumn 1965.  This one was cut about three years earlier than I usually dig into but I had to include something from this great record.  The BBs are often compared to the Byrds, but my impression is that they actually sound more like REM: i.e., they sound like what a Byrd-inspired band might do after punkrock had already happened.

11. “Can’t Find Home” Two Friends. S/T, Natural Resource/Motown 1972.  One of the best records of all time, imho, is the private-press Ted Lucas LP that has played on a weekly basis in our house for the past three years or so.  Lucas is famous for being one of the Motown studio musicians who played on dozens of those essential soul/pop records; his LP is a folk-based singer/songwriter disc tho.  Invert this dynamic and you might get Two Friends, which is a straightforward folk-rock record that Motown released on it’s sub-label Natural Resources.  Great mellow LP.

12. “How Much Older Will We Grow” Mars Bonfire.  ‘Faster Than The Speed Of Life,’ Columbia 1969. This was always one of my Psych album images so u can imagine I was pretty thrilled to find this for a buck at the estate sale of somebody who I am pretty sure worked in the art department of Columbia Records in the 1960s.  Bonfire is mostly known for having written “Born To Be Wild,” but his own album is much darker and cooler than Steppenwolf, who certainly had their good moments too.  Bonfire creates a dark+tense vibe all around, similar to the great Common People.

13. “Morning Glory” Tim Buckley.  ‘Goodbye and Hello,’ Elektra 1967.  I can’t really add anything to the discussion as far as this guy… pretty much everything he did has its major devotees.  But wow I just love the idea of be visited by a hobo whilst in ‘my fleeting house.’  My fleeting house.

14. “Bitter Wind” Moby Grape.  ‘Wow,’ Columbia 1968.  Every Moby Grape record has its own special quality; this one impressed me by being less country and more explicitly psychedelic.  AMG tells us that this is due to the worldwide post-sg-peppers moment; I hear connections to Pearls Before Swine too.

15. “Bout a Spoonful” Nathan Beauregard.  ‘All Day Thumbsucker,’ Blue thumb Records 1970.  When you listen to this, the cool, comfortable performance on the vocal and elec gtr, remember this: NB was one hundred (1 0 0) years old when he cut this track.  Dude was born five years after the end of the Civil War.  This is the gothic blues.

16. “Leave it all Behind You,” Alan Ross.  ‘Ross,’ RSO 1974.  Pretty good mildly-progressive rock; Ross backed Entwhistle on 2 of his his solo records, which are pretty phenomenal, and did a ’74 US tour to promote his own record as the opener for E. Clapton.  Jesus imagine those days.  What really caught my attention in this record is the mix, the engineering.  Esp. the drum sound on the heavier cuts.  When I checked the credits it seems the man responsible was one Anton Matthews, who perhaps not-coincidentally was also behind the desk for Man’s Welsh Connection, another obscure 70s rock disc that I featured on this previous mix.   Matthews seems to have had somewhat sporadic album credits for the entire decade of the 70s and then the trail seems to end.  Does anyone know what became of Matthews?  His is not a name that I have ever heard mentioned in the endless discussions of great rock engineering but I feel like the dude had something special going on.  AM, if yr out there, drop us a line… the people need to know…

17. “Lucky Old Sun” Sounds of Willie Wilson.  ‘People From My Home Town.’ Self-released.  Year unknown.  Is “West-Indian-Timmy-Thomas-With-A-Gtr” a mini genre?  AFAICT, if you went to a certain seafood resto in Florida in the mid 70s, you could have seen this dude with’iz phase-shift pedal and ancient beatbox making things go real smooth.  And just like the extra-large serving of Chicken Cordon Bleu, you could take some of it home with you.

18. “Inside” Kenny Rankin.  ‘Inside,’ Little David Records 1975.  I never knew exactly what a Kenny Rankin was but I always had a suspicion that it was to be avoided; then JR included a track of his on her last mixtape and guess what it was good.  I picked up the next KR LP i came across and while it may be a year or two past the prime era, this unusual title track merits some listens; it actually reminds some of the better work of the great Milton Nascimento.

19. “Emmanuelle Theme (INST),” Pierre Bachelet & Herve Roy.  ‘Emmanuelle OST,’ Warner Brothers 1974.  Been really getting back into early 70s euro film music lately.  Alain Goraguer, François de Roubaix, Pierre Cavalli, Piero Umiliani…   the way that these composers jammed together American soul+funk breaks with weird euro folk-music harmony + unusual sounds made this shit a wellspring for hip hop producers in the 90’s, when samplers first became affordable and everyone was into sample-based tracks.  That trend in music subsided a long time ago (only to creep back, in indie rock this time around); but since I’ve gotten heavily involved in creating library music with some great collaborators, I’ve been diving back into this stuff.  “Emmanuelle” is a notorious film that had many shitty sequels, but the original did incredible business and also created a brief bubble in time wherein porno films were seen as trendy and not just trashy.  The soundtrack is kinda repetitive, but this cut in particular is my fav owing to that weird dissonant organ chord that floats in at the halfway mark and just haaaaaaaaaangs there for the rest of the track.  It shouldn’t work but it does, menacing and sensual at the same time.  Bold arranging.

20.  “Birds of Summer” Veronique Sanson.  S/T, Elektra 1973.  Sanson apparently had around twenty albums released in her career.  She was also married to Steven Stills and is the mother of C. Stills.  This s/t record is pretty good all around, but this, this closer, is just killer.  It’s also way to short.  Oh the mystery.