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"...Semolina Pilchard Climbing up The Eiffel Tower..."
As the author of Genre and Year books on CD Reissues and Remasters (see my 'Sounds Good Music Book Series' of 24 e-Book titles) - this clever wee paperback caught my eye as it concentrates on a year I didn't do – "1967" – aka The Summer of Love (yeah baby).
Author KEVIN FURBANK is the Managing
Editor of the Irish Daily Mirror and has been a journalist/music enthusiast for
over 40 years. This is his third paperback release for Sonicbond Publishing – the other two being
in their On Track Series of books - Steve Hillage's Gong and those legends of
English Folk Rock – Fairport Convention. Furbank is a musician himself and with
a lean towards nutters like 70ts space cowboys Gong, he digs Prog Rock, Avant
Garde, Symphonic Rock, and of course from whence they all arguably came – 60ts
Psychedelic Rock.
UK-released by Sonicbond Publishing 26 November
2021 (31 December 2021 for the USA) - "1967 – A Year in PSYCHEDELIC ROCK –
The Bands And The Sounds Of The Summer Of Love" gives us 155 A5 paperback
pages – the bands dealt with in release-date order for that pivotal year (priced
at £14.99 but available for about ten or eleven).
Furbank quite rightly acknowledges The
Byrds and their soundscape milestone "Eight Miles High" issued as a
45-single by Columbia in the USA in March 1966. He also smartly gives a nod to
the big precursor daddy as far as most English fans were concerned,
"Tomorrow Never Knows" that tail-ended The Beatles August 1966
masterpiece "Revolver" - Ringo's stunning drumming, all those
swirling tape-loops and guitars and John (stunned on something else) telling
all of us to "...relax and float downstream... "
After a few paragraphs that set the
scene, we get the key bands of that mercurial year – The Beatles with
"Sgt. Peppers", "Penny Lane" b/w "Strawberry Fields
Forever" and the "Magical Mystery Tour" US LP, British EPs,
Movie, The Doors and their extraordinary debut on Elektra Records, Jimi Hendrix
and his first singles plus the "Are You Experienced" LP on Track,
Jefferson Airplane with both "Surrealistic Pillow" and "After Bathing
At Baxter's" on RCA Victor, Love and their dynamite "Forever
Changes" and for many – the true monster of the season to be a witch –
Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett influenced debut "The Piper At The Dates Of
Dawn" (Interstellar Overdrive y'all).
The examinations continue with Cream
(both "Fresh Cream" and "Disraeli Gears"), The Byrds and
their "Younger Than Yesterday" period, The Who doing "Sell
Out" (baked beans ahoy), the whole Beach Boys unreleased 'Smile' album
fiasco that produced "Wild Honey" and "Smiley Smile"
instead of a proper follow-up to "Pet Sounds", The Rolling Stones
with "Between The Buttons" and "Their Satanic Majesties
Request".
1967 then touches on to the most influential album of the period for me (and
of all time actually IMO) – "The Velvet Underground & Nico" Debut
on Verve with its iconic Andy Warhol Banana-Peel sleeve. This staggeringly desirable album was/is the only LP we ever kept multiple reissue copies of when I worked
as Reckless Records in Berwick Street (originals from 1967 are impossible to find and the 70s reissues on MGM also difficult). Not all of "The Velvet Underground And Nico" is strictly Pysch, more Rock Avant Garde or Experimental or just early Punk even, but then so many LPs of that year and period crossed over into other areas. It's a smart inclusion in a smart book.
There are
others genre big-hitters too of course in here – Donovan, Frank Zappa and The Mothers Of Invention, Moby
Grape, The Moody Blues and The Grateful Dead – an impress array of artists and
discussions of their releases (each entry provides release dates UK and US,
Chart Positions, Tracks etc).
Psych in all of its glories and horrors is a path well-trodden by both CD and Book - yet using quotes from those who were there, illuminating interviews
and his own funny, in-depth and intelligent observations - he makes a damn good stab at all the bands featured here (the text touches on the highs and lows too). The only slightly jarring thing is that
my copy has 20 pages of colour plates – all those gorgeous LP covers we covet
so much, but the last 4 pages for Procol Harum, Country Joe & The Fish and
Traffic unceremoniously go to black and white print instead of colour – a
printing error perhaps – but a jarring one nonetheless.
I enjoyed
this read and even dragged out my Universal Remastered CD of Traffic's December 1967 debut album "Mr. Fantasy" again because
of it and gave Coloured Rain by Steve Winwood & Co. a whirl. Traffic sang "...Until you came along, there was nothing but an empty space..." Now that's a recommendation for "1967 - A Year In PSYCHEDELIC ROCK..." if ever
there was one...
