THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Here you are in 2025, about to take the 20th trip! The 10 vintage hard rock eruptions here will swarm around you like fearful loathing bats, zapping you from unexpected angles and offering beyond-a-reasonable-doubt proof of the inevitable collapse of the psychedelic ’60s utopian dream into lowball, self-absorbed human nature.
These killer tracks may be a half-century in the rear-view mirror now. But since we can’t work it out, we gotta mess it up — with a vibe that resonates timelessly, real life ripped out of the haze by real people, fresh and unfiltered right out of the gate. Getting it while they can. These are no mere historic sound recordings; they are life itself! If you’re looking for trouble, you just found it!
AFTERFLASH open this dose of Brown Acid with a fantastic cover version of Cookbook, the stunning Damnation Of Adam Blessing song about feeding your mind with psychedelic adventures — stripped down to its essentials with two verses and an acid-soaked fuzz-guitar solo on the fade. Some 500 copies were issued in 1971 out of Iowa on Hawkeye Records. The band were formed by the merger of two garage bands — Orphans Of Love and The Thirteenth Hour — and they capture that transition from garage to psychedelic to hard rock reaching a perfect sweet spot where they come back full circle to the garage after walking a mile into a mirror and traveling sideways into time.
POLVO ask Have You Ever Been There? and ‘there’ is a dark place fortunately exorcised by no compromise heavy riffing, alienated vocal attitude until half way through when gnarly guitar leads drive it home. Out of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico in 1971 this scorcher was unleashed by Mancilla brothers Eric on guitar, Ricardo on bass, Marco on vocals with Roberto Martinez on drums. Issued on the label Orfeon but not watered down one bit by the producer.
HOT CANDY out of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in 1978 rip it up sideways with blatant Led Zeppelin action in Darkened Passage, moves that will put a big juicy WTF smile on your face. Tuff vocal and familiar heavy riffage lead to a haywire guitar break aping Jimmy Page, complete with a brief, dreamy-jangle bit culminating in a breakdown based on the way Zep come out of the trippy section of Whole Lotta Love. You will crack up when you hear it! This is a rare private pressing with the mysterious minimal-info look on the labels that seekers of the ultra-obscure get off on, buried-treasure style.
BANANA BROS’ Suck You In does just that in a style much different from the other tracks on this ride. Southern rock funky moves support an unhinged soul strutter vocal filled with grunts and ‘git it!’ yelps including the amazing lyrics “My nerves are tighter than a watch spring, watch me spring baby all over you” and “Tell me baby, what’s wrong with you?” — with dual blazing guitar licks spitting nonstop all through, hard panned left and right in the stereo mix. Cool-looking pic label, too, from Los Angeles 1975.
THE JORDAN BROTHERS from Frackville, Pennsylvania, started gigging in the late ’50s, delivering the sounds of the times throughout their career. They had a minor hit with a cover of Gimme Some Lovin’ in 1968, they’re still at it locally today. Thank You For The Ride from 1980 is a typically hard rocker for them, in an AM / Top 40 / hit radio / early ’70s style. With fuzz guitar, churning organ, and boneheaded-to-the-point lyrics, the song could have been titled Thank You For The Sex.
OSAGE LUTE’s Watch Em Shine is the most ambitious track on this trip, nearly six minutes of epic progressive-tinged action moving through multiple scenarios with tempo and key changes, never losing its ballsy edge by getting too fancy. You can easily imagine Ozzy Osbourne singing the first two verses. The extended southern dual-guitar section is followed by a terrific high-energy Led Zeppelin-influenced arrangement before the vocal comes back with some powerhouse Jack Bruce moves. Out of Union, Missouri in 1974, this band evolved into the great Back Jack.
SANDY TORANO & THE NIMO SPLIFF is a vitriolic rant from a dude who got totally bent by a girl he thinks was a nothing until he made her into a something — but then she got smart and ditched him. It has a terrific groove, a fab exhaling vocal effect a la Purple Haze and Time Of The Season, terrific left-field moves like spooky descending vocal harmony accents, clever arrangement, and gnarly guitar injected into just the right spots. Miami 1970, Sandy went disco in 1977 with the better known band Niteflyte.
LAZY DAY keep the negative vibes coming in mid-’70s bar-band southern-rock style. Usually these bands get all sweaty on stage with exhortations to dance to their music; these guys warn you Don’t Dance In My Song. Ha! Actually they’re just saying ‘Don’t get in my face, don’t spoil my groove.’ It comes from their 1974 private press LP Straight Atcha out of Iowa. The guitar break is quite tasty, but the gushy organ action is what makes it move.
FLAVOR get down with a Hot And Tot Woman who’s like playing with matches — you’ve got to put the flame out before it gets too hot They came out of Elburn, Illinois 1977. Close-to-metal riffage gives way to trashier bar-band moves with a low-fi lean towards AOR FM radio appeal, though fortunately this is too raw to get anywhere near there. It features gnarly leads, crude vocals and bleak resignation that this hot-and-tot chick has a brief shelf life like all the others — and figuring it out is pointless.
FROZEN SUN work it just right on their closer for this trip: An instrumental titled Jamm Part 1 arriving from Arizona in 1969. It has an eerie epilogue feel following the previous nine tracks. The song opens with a lost-in-time / tighten up garage-funk rhythm-guitar groove that sets the mood. Bass and drums are just on it all the way. Edgy but uneasily relaxed psychedelic fuzz guitar leads veer into raga patterns, but remain in the dive bar twilight zone, enhanced by a hauntingly generic familiarity. Off you go into the forbidden underbelly of the night. Frozen Sun offer no light with theme music for for those who can’t get it right, but have a real good time getting it wrong!”
