THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “There is no light at the end of this tunnel! Brown Acid: The Nineteenth Trip fires 10 more savage nails deep into the coffin of ’60s psychedelic idealism.
This series is THE premier top-dog journey into the rarest and most wasted early local eruptions of heavy rock, unleashed at a time when harsh reality, human nature and disillusionment drove prevailing underground rock glimpses of a ‘better’ world into ever darker self-absorbed comedowns. Mind-expanding ’60s love energies transform into toxic aggression right before your ears!
The great thing is that these moves are totally justified; ‘we are all one’ is cosmically good in theory but ‘get it while you can’ ends up perhaps better advice in the light of human history. Both of those angles of awareness can coexist, some of these bands deliver unrelenting sideways positive energy but they aren’t over-thinking it, they are youthfully driven by hunger for life and satisfying the undeniable urges their DNA thrusts upon them.
Sonically, the results in the Brown Acid series never fail to breathe hot and heavy: The guitars kill it every time, the variety of approaches these tracks take keep the scenery shifting into new places. The key element that makes this stuff so potent is that THEY (the bands) are in control, captured genuinely with no compromise, right out of the gate. No doubt they had ambition with high hopes for the future when they laid down these primal efforts.
The fact that they captured their energy so vividly at a moment in time when the only direction imaginable was UP creates a hard-hitting, life-affirming subtext to the proceedings. That is the core energy of blues and rock ’n’ roll: Dealing with the struggles of existence by flipping a gigantic ‘what the fuck’ high-energy bird right in the face of the moronic defective reality these bands were born into. If you take this stuff too seriously you are utterly missing the point; it is beyond analysis, it is life itself! No amount of thinking will get you there quicker!
Brown Acid: The Nineteenth Trip is scary. The bottomless pit of deranged, vintage heavy rock the series presents continually expands over time. Take one deadly dose too many and you might be trapped in the bad-trip loop forever. Enjoy it or lose your mind!” The track-by-track proceedings:
Dick Rabbit | You Come On Like A Train
“Welcome to the earliest recording on this ride: 1968 out of Bay City, Michigan, with cutting-edge, explosively heavy fuzz-sludge intro moves and killer, invasive riff damage akin to top-level-toxic early Blue Cheer. Keeping it extra real, this band are three brothers Gordon, Phil and Rich Thayer. In sync with the jaw-dropping heavy riff are terrific lyrics like “I can see things inside your brain,” “I can hear things I can’t see” and “I can see things I can’t touch… give it to me.” They totally bypass romance in favor of cut-to-the-chase girl-grabber action, with the cocky attitude only a young dude fresh on the hunt can pull off (but with no hint of stalker creepiness). To top it off, the guitar break has full-on Jimi-echoing moves. This track resides in the perfect sweet spot where psychedelic action morphs into wasted proto-downer hard rock. Dick Rabbit also had an impossibly rare second 45 issued in 1969, when they covered the 1966 acid classic The Trip by Donovan (spelled charmingly wrong as Donavan on the label). Extra cred for having such an outrageous band name for 1968!”
Blizzard | Be Myself
“Coming out of Oklahoma City in 1974, this makes a solid case for toughening up your attitude towards society: ‘How I live is not yours to decide — I’m gonna be myself and you can fuck off if you can’t dig that’ is the message here. The backup vocals emphasize the theme by repeating the title, an instant in-your-head mega-hook perfectly offset by the gnarly guitar attacks. One of the key elements on this — and most of the tracks on The Nineteenth Trip — is the fully engaged drumming. Not merely keeping the beat, the sticks are flying all over the place like another lead instrument, kicking ass in a musical street fight!”
Fox | Sun City Part II
“This was unleashed in 1969, a very rare 45 on San Francisco’s Studio 10 records — the same label and year as the better-known Day Blindness LP led by singer-guitarist Gary Pihl. The psychy, Hammond organ-dosed proto-heavy vibe of the LP is surpassed here brutally as Gary strips the sound down to a two-chord, fried power trio stalker, completed with deranged, in-your-face vocal attitude, inscrutable lyrics, and a primitive no-frills guitar break with an arrogant, abrasive tone. Pihl later found fame by joining the classic rock band Boston, but this crude, toxic burner is as far removed from that highly produced radio-friendly sound as imaginable. It goes straight for the throat — no tarting things up for chart success, this is the undiluted, real deal. You can smell the gritty vibe here as vividly as you can hear it.”
Sweet Wine | Bringing Me Back Home
“Bringing Me Back Home expands the variety of early hard-rock action on The Nineteenth Trip backwards into time. No psychedelic comedown hangover here; this track is straight-up bluesy / boogie shuffle rock about being on the road and needing to get down with his woman back home. Issued in 1970 in Virginia, Minn., it features southern rock moves more appropriate to Virginia the state. Bands like this were sprouting up locally everywhere in the country — north, south, east and west — at the time, all uncannily similar in their roots-rocking bar-band sound that you almost suspect the existence of a secret Invasion of the Body Snatchers-style plot to bring rock out of the pipe dreams of psychedelia and back home to women and booze.”
Enoch Smokey | Roll Over Beethoven
“This one is sequenced perfectly after Sweet Wine to close out Side 1 on the vinyl version with more twisted, roots-inflected rocking. The Chuck Berry classic feels like an odd side trip from the general thrust of Brown Acid post-’60s downer derangement material, but in keeping with the wide variety of proto-hard rock styles these wide-angle trips present, it fits right in. They attack the song from a new angle, retaining some glimmers of its original rock ’n’ roll oldie feel, but changing everything else up in light of the setting: 1969, Iowa City. They retool the structure, change up the drums, add a cool descending chord section to the break, with the guitar ripping it up throughout in hard rock overkill style, leaving the iconic Berry guitar moves out of the picture. That’s what makes it seem familiar and new at the same time. Nice job of fucking with perspective.”
Flight | Get You
“Get You is the flip side to the awesome Luvin’, Huggin’ & More, which appeared on The Sixth Trip. Vic Blecman is the legendary genius behind this ludicrously cool come-on song. The vocals are ridiculously to the point, the guitars crunching it up. It gets right in your head like you already know it the first time you hear it. Vic was in the ’60s garage band The Cavemen, worked as a DJ on WGCL radio in Cleveland, and issued some wacky space-novelty 45s some years after this double-sided killer emerged from Elyria, Ohio in 1974. He also owned a swinging-singles adult disco. Clearly, a local renaissance-man hustler in true American entrepreneur style.”
Quick Fox | Indian
“Coming out of Berkshire in western Massachusetts in 1978, Indian features the only ’60s psychedelic embers still sizzling prominent and undisguised on this trip. The guitar attack flashes back to late ’60s Wild West Coast cross-talk turf like Moby Grape, Tripsichord and Quicksilver, with some rudimentary progressive ambitions and trebly power chords, dual guitar weavings with no hint of bluesy attitude in the wistful, dark vocal arrangements. It’s a haunted and reflective lament for the fate of the Indians on the surface, but the jacked-up, high-energy tension in the stormy musical undercurrent supercharges those harmonies with urgency. Gnarly but lyrical guitar patterns hallucinate this guitar feast right out of space and time, taking this Nineteenth Trip back into some bleak disillusioned lost world that can only be escaped by giving up on the dream this series continually sabotages.”
Bonjour Aviators | The Fury In Your Eyes
“The Fury In Your Eyes obliterates whatever mystical fumes are left hanging in the air from the previous track and shoves you headfirst into dive-bar woman trouble. The guitar riffs are raw and basic, with scattershot licks flying. The singer struts his stuff but it backfires — he pisses the chick off, as indicated by the name of the song. The title is repeated over and over in classic genius-bonehead fashion. The musical hook misses the mark in any remotely clever manner, but totally wins the day as it is so brilliantly matched to the words. Bonjour Aviators were on the scene in Boston in 1976, playing alongside bands like the Real Kids and DMZ that were carrying the torch of early hard rock locally in the slump years between the original ’60s garage and hard rock explosion and the emergence of the late ’70s street rock, punk and power-pop scenes. You can hear some radio-friendly moves in the guitar breaks, but otherwise these guys keep it raw. They also have a dose of glam-rock star attitude in the mix. The pic sleeve includes a credit for their hair dresser!”
Cedric | I’m Leavin’
“This one is a work of utterly primitive genius — the crudest track on The Nineteenth Trip, and one capable of blowing the groovy ’60s hippie-chick flower-power love world into oblivion. These dudes throw a wrecking ball into even the possibility of having meaningful relationships. This jaw dropper is an early effort by brothers Dennis and Byron Totty, issued on the Tulsa label Derrick, which also released the mega-rare Marble Phrogg LP. The brothers made a killer private-press rock LP in the mid ’70s using the name Totty and scored big-time gigs opening for ZZ Top and Grand Funk Railroad back in the day. But wrap your head around this track — what a way to kick off your career. They play with a minimalist, unfiltered brash intensity that makes even calling this track a ‘song’ seem fancy and uptight. It’s more like a semi-conscious primal-youth rant-fest dominated by harshly aggressive rhythm guitar with hyper, scattershot drumming topped by a vocal that reaches the pinnacle of deluded confusion. The girl he takes home from the party is seriously messing up his head. Even though he’s getting exactly what he wants, his own attitude and depiction of her are both fucked up as powerfully as the primal noise this whole mess assaults you with. The lyrics and vocal delivery are truly deranged, you’ll see! This is a prime example of a band capturing the core essence of hard rock in such an unfiltered way it feels like the first time, every time, into eternity. This is real life on rampage.”
Zane | Step Aside
“Zane take things in a way different direction to close out The Nineteenth Trip, shifting gears from the brutal garage intensity of the previous track. It’s time to escape into space! Zane come on like some lowball sci-fi B-movie out of Malmo, Sweden in 1976, a bizarre stew of sounds to finish the ride. Step Aside uses a hypnotic fuzz-buzz / minimal two-chord groove to locate it somewhere in the outer limits of mad-scientist, progressive trance rock with double-time hi-hat moves, cheap electronic effects and synth gurgles — all evoking an alienated futuristic Krautrock / Hawkwind space-rock zone, with early glimmerings of DIY pre-punk / wave humor and weirdness. The fake progressive moves herein come off more like burlesque, and that’s a compliment, key to the appeal of the track. It’s knowingly outrageous, an entertaining pose where the vocals intentionally wind you up into an ominous but funny sense of lurking doom. Analyzing it will just spin you in circles, so just surrender to the preposterousness. This bonkers slice of insanity will get you cracking up in the best possible way.”
