New Years 2014 Mixtape

How y’all doin on this cold+dark December day…  been toiling like a farmer at the PS dot com HQ, tryin to get another mixtape out the door before the bell tolls on ’13.  I am more excited about this mixtape than I have been in a while; some really great cuts on here.  I was v v fortunate to chance upon some really outstanding collections this past season (special thanks to D.S…) and the best of the best are captured here.  As always, if you see me, ask me for a CD of the mix- as always, transcribed fresh from vinyl via my trust Benz Micro cartridge.  Hope you all have an excellent NYE, and here’s to a better+brighter one-four.

1. The Equals “Police On My Back” from the comp The Best Of The Equals, EMI/Stateside (year unknown; presumed to be 1968).

2. John Entwhistle “I Wonder” from the LP Whistle Rymes, Track/Decca/MCA 1972.

3. Lee Clayton “Carnival Balloon” from the S/T 1973 MCA LP.  (no link available)

4. Sopwith Camel “Fazon” from the LP The Miraculous Hump Returns From The Moon, Reprise 1972.

5. Danny Cox “Hey Jude” from the LP Birth Announcement, Forward/Together Records, 1969. (no link available)

6. The Electric Prunes “I Happen To Love You” from the LP Underground, Reprise 1967.

7. Suzi Quatro “Michael” from the LP Your Mama Won’t Like Me, Arista 1975.

8. John Ussery “Must Have Been The Season” from his self-titles LP, Phonogram 1973.

9. David Wiffen “Climb The Stairs” from the LP Coast To Coast Fever, Liberty 1973. (no link available)

10. Earth Opera “Time And Again” from the s/t LP, Elektra 1968.

11. Longdancer “Too Much Too Soon” from the LP If It Was So Simple, Rocket/MCA 1973.

12. John Entwhistle “My Wife” from the LP Rigor Mortis Sets In, Track/MCA 1973.

13. 999 “Bongos On The Nile” from the LP Concrete, Albion/Polygram 1981. (no link available)

14. Brownsville Station “Rumble” from the comp Non-Dairy Creamer, Warner Bros Records 1971.

15. Black Pearl “Mr. Soul Satisfaction” from the s/t LP, Atlantic 1969.

16. Rare Bird “What Do You Want To Know” from the LP As Your Mind Flies By, ABC 1970. (no link available)

17. Stealers Wheel “Right or Wrong” from the LP Right Or Wrong, A&M 1975.

18. Redeye “Collections of Yesterday And Now” from the s/t LP, Pentagram/Bravo/Viva 1971.

For track notes + more of the greatest album art of all time, click the link below to READ ON…

1. The Equals “Police On My Back” from the comp The Best Of The Equals, EMI/Stateside (year unknown; presumed to be 1968).  If you ever get to be one of the first couple people to dig thru a just-unearthed collection of 75,000 records, you might find some Isreali pressings of Equals records.  Or you might not.  Oh yeah, and The Clash did a much -less impressive version of this song, and singer Eddy Grant finally had a hit many many years later with ‘Electric Avenue.’

2. John Entwhistle “I Wonder” from the LP Whistle Rymes, Track/Decca/MCA 1972.  Another fkkn insane and singular brass riff from JE.

3. Lee Clayton “Carnival Balloon” from the S/T 1973 MCA LP.  After I went down the Lee Clayton youtube whirlpool, I hadda get this disc…  it wasn’t cheap.  And it’s worth it.  Not really 70’s country music at all, more like way-ahead-of-its-time country music.  Great straightforward but smart tunes.  Check out the subtle calliope-esque bridge inst figure.  A great writer.

4. Sopwith Camel “Fazon” from the LP The Miraculous Hump Returns From The Moon, Reprise 1972.  I gotta give credit, it was the Dangerous Minds blog that made me pay attention to this disc.  But once I put it on…  do you ever hear a track for the first time, a track so obscure that there is really no way you ever could have heard it before, and you knew it instantly…  like out of a dream.  The following cut is called “Coke, Suede, And Waterbeds,” btw, so yeah this all still reads correctly… This record is fairly pricey but worth tracking down.

5. Danny Cox “Hey Jude” from the LP Birth Announcement, Forward/Together Records, 1969.  goddamn listen to those drums!  Looks like Drummer PS also drummed for Rick Nelson?  I love this whole double LP. The biggest name on this thing is steel-man Red Rhodes.  False ending and then holy shit…  Hare Krishna apocalypse.  So so good.  Hell of a recording.  Richard Moore, man. Nice work.

6. The Electric Prunes “I Happen To Love You” from the LP Underground, Reprise 1967.  It was tough to pick a track from this LP.  The whole thing is so good, and this is really an incredible record to find these days…  so I went with a King/Goffin composition (!!!) that had earlier been recorded by The Myddle Class.  Carole King is one of my all-time idols, sheer genius.

7. Suzi Quatro “Michael” from the LP Your Mama Won’t Like Me, Arista 1975.  I dig Suzi.  Can’t say too much about this track, other than it captures her real hooky side…  kinda a bridge between the early rock stuff she did and the hits to come.  BTW, if yr ever unsure what to do with a chorus, cook us some ba-da-das or oh-whoa-ohs.  You can’t lose.

8. John Ussery “Must Have Been The Season” from his self-titles LP, Phonogram 1973.  Good druggy, boozey (lotsa phase-shifter) blues-rock disc helmed by Delaney Bramlett.  This is the most mellow cut, entry 16779 in the ‘let’s re-write that Blind Faith song’ sweepstakes.  But still good, ya know? Actually wait.. maybe Blind Faith just running Dear Prudence in reh that day?  Where do you draw the line?

9. David Wiffen “Climb The Stairs” from the LP Coast To Coast Fever, Liberty 1973.  Thanks to KA for intro’ing me to DW…  Wiffen is the king of the folk-bummers (well maybe Ted Lucas…) but wow I dig this dude.  This, his second LP, is an entire LP of dark road-songs.  Wiffen wrote one of the songs in the folk-rock canon, and had a pretty sad time of life… no one knows where he ended up.   Check out his Wiki entry and BUY THIS LP, it’s so incredible.  Everything that’s good about Fred Neil but with pop hooks.  Also, produced by a young Bruce Cockburn.

10. Earth Opera “Time And Again” from the s/t LP, Elektra 1968.  Excellent far-out pysch-folk along the lines of label-mate T. Buckley and Pearls Before Swine.  The band was co-fronted by a v v young Dave Grisman, who yup played mando on American Beauty and went on to the one of the most significant careers in American roots-music.

11. Longdancer “Too Much Too Soon” from the LP If It Was So Simple, Rocket/MCA 1973.  What if I told you that Dave Stewart (the dude stndng nxt to Annie Lennox) had been in an awesome Matthews-Southern-Comfort-esque UK folk-rock band many years before achieving fame?

12. John Entwhistle “My Wife” from the LP Rigor Mortis Sets In, Track/MCA 1973.  This is a great heavy pop song… and then that INST bridge good lord… a Kanye hit waiting to happen.

13. 999 “Bongos On The Nile” from the LP Concrete, Albion/Polygram 1981.  Fantastic “Green Onions” pastiche from the group that wrote one of my all-time fav old-school punkrock tracks “Homicide.”  If you ignore the recording quality, this is a song that could have been released anytime between 1965 and tomorrow.

14. Brownsville Station “Rumble” from the comp Non-Dairy Creamer, Warner Bros Records 1971.  WB had a whole series of double-LP comps that are pretty common; this single-disc promo comp has some weirder and hairer tracks than most of those.  This Link-Wray-Meets Zep thing is fucking insane.  I always imagined that Brownsville Station (they wrote ‘smoking in the boys room’) had it in ’em; took this disc to prove it to me.  Play the FKKN thing rite, indeed…

15. Black Pearl “Mr. Soul Satisfaction” from the s/t LP, Atlantic 1969.  This was another unlikely find…a pretty rare disc…  one of the few bands that did that dopers-do-James-Brown MC5 thing.  The whole record is good, but not easy to find.

16. Rare Bird “What Do You Want To Know” from the LP As Your Mind Flies By, ABC 1970.  UK rock/prog band noted for the absence of guitars on their first two discs.  Great song… the UK Mono single mix of this song is the way to go, but as an American, i’ll never be able to find it on wax… check it on youtube…

17. Stealers Wheel “Right or Wrong” from the LP Right Or Wrong.  I am listening to this so fkkn loud right now, … this was my happiest discovery of the beast few months.  Gerry Rafferty was a talented+tortured dude who gave the world one of the most timeless tracks in the brief history of CSRM (Commercially Saleable Recorded Music), and all his early Stealers Wheel discs are great.. this track, which closes the final SW disc, is a gem of pop perfection in every sense…  just wait til the T-Rex coda…  This track should be played on the radio 10 times every day around the world.

18. Redeye “Collections of Yesterday And Now” from the s/t LP, Pentagram/Bravo/Viva 1971.  Early Al Schmitt production (dude went on to win SEVEN grammys) which bore the hit “Games” (also great).  shit, this whole LP is great.  As the title indicates, this is some mellow doper music.  Recorded to 8-track!  Love the harmony in 3rds and the smokey Les-Paul-with-the-Tone-Rolled-off lead gtr.  The whole disc is groove-based and bass-driven like this. I can’t say enough good things about this record.