Psychedelic, self-help, lounge-jazz invented and laid to rest in the duration of one song. D.R. Hooker rocks a brave look post-Manson that is half cultish troubadour, half prophet. Hard to tell whether he's addressing himself or someone else in this song. They're selling hippie wigs in Woolworths man.
Big Bill was evidently a sharp dresser and couldn't abide his threads being torn to pieces by horny mamas clamoring to see if his bedroom skills were as nimble as his musical ones. A nice problem to have one might imagine.
Cale-era Velvets with a barrage of kinetic rock 'n roll - Foggy Notion was one of the tracks off their unreleased album for MGM Records, due for release in 1969, but only reaching the light of day in the '80s. Doug Yule cuts particularly loose on lead guitar, 'metronomic' Mo tucker looks after percussion whilst Reed sings about calamine lotion.
Astro-travelling closer to the sought after US69 LP 'Yesterday's Folks' on the Buddah Records label, a gem that successfully melds psych moods with funk, jazz and eastern flavours without being a convoluted crock of shit. This one is ideal fodder for star-gazing, meteorite-spotting and quiching out in gardens. Check the title track for tough breaks, breezy reed pieces and tongue-in-cheek vocals. In fact check out the rest of the album, its a real grower.
This psychedelic groover is taken from the compilation pictured above, ominously titled 'The World Ends' - the latest installment on the always-excellent Soundway re-issue label. The material is sourced from Nigeria in the '70s when musicians were absorbing the psychedelic rock and funk sounds of the West and wringing them back out in their own viscous incarnations. The backdrop was one of intense political strife and upheaval following internal power struggles and the fallout of the Biafran War. This is a feral six-minute taster of the kind of musical responses being posted to the unrest and the West, that manages to reference James Brown, Hendrix and Fela Kuti whilst retaining its own beguiling individuality. Compilation alert!
Lifted from their 'Nancy & Lee' comp/album from 1968, a package of timeless, haunting and elusive songs. 'Some Velvet Morning' will be known to many, the video of which presents Nancy as the very human incarnation of the goddess Phaedra. Hazlewood was a psychedelic cowboy and pop hit master, who rocked the fat slug tash like only a few in history have successfully managed (mainly cricketers as it happens).
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