THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “If you survived trips 1-17 with one tiny speck of psychedelic sunshine intact, Brown Acid: The Eighteenth Trip will be your coming-of-age nightmare. Vintage underground ’70s hard rock, coming at you from bizarre angles, straight out of local-scene wasteland America at a time when everybody was out for themselves and the drugs went bleak. The guitars kill, the attitude is twisted, even the sex is headed down the wrong road. Real people, no compromise, pure and potent. Get stoked, take The Eighteenth Trip and know that the artists will get paid for pulverizing your soul!
“People… are you ready?, ’cause the music now is getting so heavy,” advise Back Jack out of St. Louis, Missouri in 1974, launching our trip with Bridge Waters Dynamite. It’s an invocation to rock, flashing on Mark Farner whooping up a Grand Funk crowd, then getting to the point quickly with berserk guitar assaults. The heavy riff and power chord stalk beneath as you heed their words. Get loose and blow up the past.
Smokin’ Buku Band will drop your jaw with the audacious track Hot Love, coming on like some fractured fever dream burlesque of Led Zeppelin — but based out of Hollywood in 1980. Swooping elongated vocals above, a total Zep chord move at the end of each verse. Writer/producer Steve Shauger (aka Shag Stevens) gets a brilliantly messed-up sound quality here, the ideal polar opposite of slick. The extended guitar break is an epitome of serendipitously crude virtuosity. Simply outrageous!
Coming at you from way outta left field is Moby Shark by Atlantis, a hilarious and strange Baltimore pre-punk vibed dose of DIY meets hard rock. Lon Talbot is the mastermind, and before we forget, here’s a fun fact: The flip side of this impossibly rare Mekon Records single was featured in an obscure 1978 B-movie titled The Alien Factor. Follow the lyrics closely, when the ominous jaws jaws jaws start coming after you you you… The song’s big hook is so preposterously catchy the shark attack feels like good news. Inquiring minds should know that the band formerly known as Atlantis can now be found by searching for the Lon Talbot Group.
Tommy Stuart And The Rubberband’s Peeking Through Your Window from 1970 opens with a spooky organ riff, slips into a gushy fuzz groove akin to Mustache In Your Face by Pretty. The singer creates downright creepy vibes, a stalker peeking through the girl’s mind like a peeping Tom at the window. The lyrics evoke a truly disturbing scenario. Tommy Stuart also made a strange LP titled Hound Dog Man in 1977 and some terrific rare garage singles under the names Magnificent Seven and The Omen & Their Love in the mid-’60s.
Nothing better than an angry two-chord guitar attack with cowbell to set the stage for this rant about getting Ripped Off by love. Taken from their rare 1977 LP on Dynamite Records, Chicago Triangle were Marvey Esparza, Dave Guereca, Jose ‘Tarr’ Perez and Robert Aguilera. They unleash such strong brain-scrubbing wah wah frenzy in the guitar break here that it seems to perversely mock its own intensity.
Parchment Farm from Union, Missouri gigged with the likes of ZZ Top and Ted Nugent back in the day and unleashed the amazing Songs Of The Dead in 1971. It offers a primitive riff/chord pattern dosed with some funky prog moves — along with a hit of disoriented confusion. As the skies turn black, you may as well grab your guitar and sing songs to the dead. Meet Robert ‘Ace’ Williams on bass, Paul Cockrum on guitar, and Mike Dulany on drums (RIP). Bonus points for taking their band name from Blue Cheer’s misspelled version of the blues classic from Vincebus Eruptum.
Damnation of Adam Blessing (aka Damnation and Glory) came out of Cleveland and unleashed the stone killer psychedelic-rock classic Cookbook in the late ’60s. Nightmare from 1973 has them cooking again at full power. Featuring a different singer, it unleashes a deadly dose of darkly progressive heavy-rock drama, peaking when spooky ‘Oooo-wa-oooo’ background vocals emerge during a bizarre spoken bit. It unfolds like a mini-epic and includes some remarkably brutal guitar and turbulent organ, too.
“Swing your sword, all aboard… bid farewell to the dreamer,” Dalquist exclaim. Farewell To The Dreamer takes a cynical view of human nature — idealism is over, war is coming, it always does. It opens with a cold menacing riff and atmosphere reminiscent of Synthezoid Heartbreak by Maya. Mournful despondent vocals ride an insistent churning groove, while a gnarly guitar break moves into free noise territory. This rare track is from a local various artists benefit album titled Kangaroo Jam, issued for the Waco Family Abuse Center in Texas circa 1980. No, really.
The Pawnbrokers’ Realize is primo proto heavy rock emerging coming out of psychedelic garage roots in 1968 Fargo, N.D. It boasts an unusual arrangement, terrific sustained guitar tones reminiscent of the first Blue Cheer LP, and even a rip on Jimi Hendrix’s Manic Depression with unison voice and guitar ascent near the end. They ’brokers made three 45s and were active from ’65 to ’69. Hats off to Blake English, Kent Richey, Paul Rogne and Steve Harrison — you nailed it in just a hair over two minutes. This is as pure and creative as original psychedelic garage-rock gets.
Ominous organ, thick minimalist fuzz riff, funky psychedelic wah-wah flashes and freaky sex combine in one twisted dance titled Rockin’ Chair by Brothers Of The Ghetto. Out of Chicago in 1975 with some Santana atmospherics and a delicious fuzz-wah screamin’ guitar break, the groove is highlighted by an off-the-wall vocal which sounds eerily detached in a subtly sleazy way. Rene Maxwell wrote this hard-rock boogie-down hybrid, which arrives straight out of the twilight zone. It was issued on Ghetto, a subsidiary of the peculiar Kiderian label that released the Creme Soda LP. Now that your head is totally skewered, go back, jack and do it again!”
