Testify! Pays Tribute to Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators

Spades – You’re Gonna Miss Me (Zero)
Clique – Splash 1 (Cinema)
Julian Cope – Levitation (Island)
Sir Douglas Quintet – You’re Gonna Miss Me (Live on Fridays)

Intro from Where the Action Is
13th Floor Elevators – You’re Gonna Miss Me (IA)
American Bandstand Clip
13th Floor Elevators – Reverberation (IA)
13th Floor Elevators – Splash 1 (IA)
13th Floor Elevators – You Don’t Know (IA)
Intro from Larry Kane Show
13th Floor Elevators – Don’t Fall Down (IA)
Outro from Larry Kane Show
13th Floor Elevators – Kingdom of Heaven (IA)
13th Floor Elevators – Tried to Hide (IA)
13th Floor Elevators – Fire Engine (IA)
13th Floor Elevators – Interview (Live on Sumpin’ Else TV Show)
13th Floor Elevators – Gloria (Live on Sumpin’ Else)
13th Floor Elevators – The Word (Live In California)

13th Floor Elevators – Slip Inside This House (IA)
Reading from 1966 Austin Statesman column
13th Floor Elevators- Slide Machine (IA)
13th Floor Elevators – She Lives In a Time of Her Own (IA)
13th Floor Elevators – Nobody To Love (IA)
13th Floor Elevators – Dust (IA)
13th Floor Elevators – I Had To Tell You (IA)
13th Floor Elevators – Postures (Leave Your Body Behind) (IA)

Bull of the Woods Radio Spot – Bull of the Woods 1969
13th Floor Elevators – Livin’ On (IA)
13th Floor Elevators – Til Then (IA)
13th Floor Elevators – Never Another (IA)
13th Floor Elevators – Scarlet and the Gold (IA)
13th Floor Elevators – Street Song (IA)
13th Floor Elevators – May the Circle Remain Unbroken (IA)

Rex Garvin and the Mighty Cravers – I Gotta Go Now (Up On the Floor) (Like)

Testify Episode #116. Originally broadcast 06/05/2019

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Greetings all

I don’t often repost Testify! episodes here at Iron Leg, but this one was special.

When Roky Erickson passed last week I promised myself that I’d do a full, two hour tribute on Testify!

This show includes tracks from all three albums, some rarities and some cool interstitial stuff as well.

So slap on the headphones and leave your body behind.

Peace

Larry

 

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If you dig what we do here or over at Funky16Corners, please consider clicking on the Patreon link and throwing something into the yearly operating budget! Do it and we’ll send you some groovy Funky16Corners Radio Network (and related) stickers!

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PS Head over to Funky16Corners for some soul.

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RIP Roky…13th Floor Elevators – Slip Inside This House (45 edit)

The 13th Floor Elevator, with Roky sporting his 6th Grade Picture Day smile

Listen/Download – 13th Floor Elevators – Slip Inside This House (45 Edit)

NOTE: I’m re-posting this classic in memory of the mighty Roky Erickson who passed on this week. I’ll be doing a full two-hour tribute to Roky and the Elevators this Wednesday on Testify! (wfmu.org/playlists/TG).

RIP Roky…

Greetings all.

The track I bring you today is my favorite track by one of my all-time favorite bands, the mighty 13th Floor Elevators.

Though most people with think of them as a Nuggets-style one hit wonder, or a psychedelic curiousity, I’d place the Elevators in the top rank of US bands of the 1960s.

They were brilliant songwriters and performers, with a unique, consistent sound who made some of the best albums of their time.

Today’s selection, ‘Slip Inside This House’ was the opening track on the group’s sophomore LP ‘Easter Everywhere’ from 1967. The original LP track clocked in 1t 7:55, with the 45 edit cut down (with a slightly jarring edit at 3:49) to just over four minutes.

The Elevators were nothing if not ahead of their time, genuinely/deeply psychedelic at a time when most innovators were just dabbling, dark at a time when light and poppy was the coin of the realm, and featuring an amplified jug in their front line (which looks insane on paper, yet managed to be a key part of their sound).

Opening with Stacy Sutherland’s modal guitar, soon joined by Tommy Hall’s jug and Roky’s wail, ‘Slip Inside This House’ is as mind-blowing today as it must have been in 1967.

The band builds a strangely powerful rumble, with the modulating jug and lead guitar weaving in and out, from one ear to another, Roky’s voice cutting through like a knife.

It is an amazing track from a drastically underrated band.

I hope you dig it.

See you next week.

Peace

Larry

 

PS Head over to Funky16Corners for some soul.

Iron Leg Radio Show Episode #98

Why hello there!

Playlist

Guitar Keith Allison – Who Do You Love (Amy)
Guitar Keith Allison – Don’t Want Nobody But You (Amy)
Grady and Brady – Just a Lot of Talk (Planetary)
Grady and Brady – Love or Money (Planetary)

Gary Sanders – Ain’t No Beatle (WB)
Gary Sanders – Ain’t I Good To You (WB)
JJ Cale – It’s a Go Go Place (Liberty)
Spotlights – Batman and Robin (Smash)
Astronauts – Main Street (RCA)
Bobby Whitlock – Raspberry Rug (HIP)
Asylum Choir – Theives In the Choir (Smash)

Rascals – You Better Run (Atlantic)
Rascals – Find Somebody (Atlantic)
Rascals – It’s Love (Atlantic)
Genya Ravan – Flying (Columbia)

Dion – Purple Haze (Laurie) 1968
Dion – Sun Fun Song (Laurie)
Gary Burton – I Want You (RCA) 1966
Gary Burton – Just Like a Woman (RCA)

Al Serafini His Electronic Sax and Orchestra – Sir Albert (Audio Fidelity)
Charlie Byrd – Julia (Columbia)
Charlie Byrd – While My Guitar Gently Weeps (Columbia)
Neil Young – If I Could Have Her Tonight (Reprise)
Bettye Lavette – Heart of Gold (Atco)

Listen/Download -Iron Leg Radio Show Episode #98 – 180MB/256kbps

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It’s Iron Leg Radio time again!

We have a cool one for you this month, with  a set of early Leon Russell things as producer, arranger, composer and performer, some garage, country rock, now sound and mellow psych.

Click here to subscribe to any of the Funky16Corners Radio Network shows!

So dig it, and I’ll see you all next week.

Peace

Larry

 

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If you dig what we do here or over at Funky16Corners, please consider clicking on the Patreon link and throwing something into the yearly operating budget! Do it and we’ll send you some groovy Funky16Corners Radio Network (and related) stickers!

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PS Head over to Funky16Corners

Fargo – Talks We Used to Have

Fargo

Listen/Download – Fargo – Talks We Used To Have

Greetings all.

A few years back I was out driving around the hinterlands of upstate New York with my father-in-law, perusing antique stores and the like and happened upon one of the most isolated record stores I’ve ever been to.

The place was one of those big old buildings that looked like it used to be a feed store, but all of the oats and hay had been replaced by well worn cardboard boxes full of records.

Things were not optimally organized or placed for easy browsing, but I couldn’t very well walk away from a mountain of vinyl like that, so dig I did.

One of the armload of records I picked up that day was the album you see before you by Fargo.

Fargo, basically the duo of Dean Wilden and Tony Decker seem to have hailed from Utah, and if a few of the songs on the album (along with scraps of information on the interwebs) are to be believed, they were dabbling in Christian rock.

Don’t let that out you off, because while they were dabbling in Jesus, they were fully involved in making high quality folk/pop/popsike, packed to the rafters with hooks and tight harmonies.

Recorded in 1969, with assistance from Rick Cunha (of Hearts and Flowers) and producer/songwriter Marty Cooper, ‘I See It Now’ is – if not a genuine lost classic – orbiting in the vicinity thereof.

Cooper is an interesting touchpoint, because he helped write a few of the songs and is the link between Fargo and Jennifer Warnes, who recorded their song ‘Places Everyone’ and the Cooper-penned ‘Sunny Day Blue’ which appeared as a Fargo b-side.

The track I bring you today is my fave from the album, ‘Talks We used To Have’.

The song is a blissful piece of folk rock bordering on sunshine pop, with an absolutely beautiful chorus. I’m a little shocked that it wasn’t released as a 45, but all signs seem to point to the fact that Fargo were an artistic success and a commercial failure.

I don’t think Wilden or Decker did anything else, which is a shame since they clearly had a lot of talent.

‘I See It Now’ was reissued on CD by Lion records in 2017. The original album isn’t terribly expensive, hovering between 10 and 20 dollars, and worth every penny.

I hope you dig the tune, and I’ll see you all next week.

Peace

Larry

 

________________________________________________

If you dig what we do here or over at Funky16Corners, please consider clicking on the Patreon link and throwing something into the yearly operating budget! Do it and we’ll send you some groovy Funky16Corners Radio Network (and related) stickers!

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PS Head over to Funky16Corners for some soul.

Colours – Brother Lou’s Love Colony

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Colours

Listen/Download – Colours – Brother Lou’s Love Colony

Greetings all.

I hope the new week finds you well.

Today’s selection is from one of the finest examples of Beatles-influenced pop from the ate 60s.

Colours were a Southern California band that featured songwriters Gary Montgomery and Jack Dalton, as well as Oklahoma-emigrees Chuck Blackwell and Carl Radle (both of whom would be found in the orbit of Leon Russell, the latter ending up in Derek and the Dominos).

Colours recorded two albums for Dot in 1968 and 1969.

The first is – as described above – soaked in Beatle-esque sounds, and very much part of the 1968 musical zeitgeist. The second album ‘Atmosphere’ is missing most of the hooks and sounds like the group shaking off their influences and getting a lot hippy-er.

That said, their first, self-titled album is fantastic, with all the songs written by Dalton and Montgomery (two names that pop up a lot in late-60s LA).

The track I bring you today is one of the best tunes on the record, with a sound that mixes UK psyche and Topanga Canyon vibes, with sitar, strings, pulsing bass, group harmonies and tinkling piano (it even manages to work in some bagpipes at the end).

The tune was covered by The Moon (LA group featuring Matthew Moore and original Beach Boy David Marks) on their 1968 album ‘Without Earth’.

It’s a very groovy tune, and I highly recommend picking yourself up a copy of the album if you see it.

I hope you dig it, and I’ll see you all next week.

Peace

Larry

 

________________________________________________

If you dig what we do here or over at Funky16Corners, please consider clicking on the Patreon link and throwing something into the yearly operating budget! Do it and we’ll send you some groovy Funky16Corners Radio Network (and related) stickers!

_______________________________________________

PS Head over to Funky16Corners for some soul.

Enoch Light and the Light Brigade – The Jerk

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Enoch Light, at work

Listen/Download – Enoch Light and the Light Brigade – The Jerk

Greetings all.

The track I bring you today is from the files of easy but not quite cheesy takes on the discotheque-au-go-go sound of the mid 1960s.

Enoch Light is a big fave of mine as artist, producer and label honcho.

Through the 50s, 60s and 70s he and a battalion of NY-based studio cats laid down some of the coolest ‘adult’ sounds (in the age bracket sense) of the day.

Most of what he did was aimed at your parents and the hi-fi nut down the street (with the marked exception Free Design, which was aimed at hipsters 30 years in the future), but along the way he managed to lay it all out with a sense of professionalism, imagination, adventure and even a touch of the far out.

Though the album that yielded today’s selection doesn’t sport any info about personnel, Light often used guys like keyboardist Dick Hyman (who did some very forward thinking moog experimentation under Light’s aegis) and drummer Bobby Rosengarden (the leader of the band on Dick Cavett’s show) who were sliding into middle age yet hip and lively enough not to sound like it.

This cover of Don Julian and the Larks ‘The Jerk’ appeared on the 1965 LP ‘Discotheque Vol 2’, which like the previous volume in the series is an approximation of the ‘teen’ sound filtered through a slightly hip society dance band.

This is a perfect representation of the kind of now sound-ery that you’d find in a discotheque scene in a TV show or movie of the period, in which (as is laid out here at length) the older set is working on sounding like the younger set, failing, yet creating something groovy all the same.

There are a number of similarly cool cuts on this record (the first volume is recommended as well). When I play this I get nostalgic for a long-departed local record joint, run by a truly weird guy, that used to harbor a huge stash of Command/Project 3 stock, of which I was the premier plunderer of for a few years.

That said, those days are gone, but many of those records remain in my crates.

I hope you dig the cut, and I’ll see you all next week.

Peace

Larry

 

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If you dig what we do here or over at Funky16Corners, please consider clicking on the Patreon link and throwing something into the yearly operating budget! Do it and we’ll send you some groovy Funky16Corners Radio Network (and related) stickers!

_______________________________________________

PS Head over to Funky16Corners for some soul.

Grady and Brady – Star of the Show

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Grady and Brady on Shivaree in 1965

Listen/Download – Grady and Brady – Star of the Show

Greetings all.

Today’s selection was picked up a while back in the midst of a David Gates dragnet.

Gates, best known for his work with Bread spent much of the decade prior to the founding of that group as an extremely busy songwriter and producer in Los Angeles.

Gates was part of the great Oklahoma to Los Angeles musical diaspora of the 60s (along with Leon Russell among many others) and worked in the studio with all kinds of acts, including the early Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band.

Today’s selection is one of the last 45s by the twin-brother duo of Grady and Brady Sneed. There’s not much info out there about them other than that they recorded a string of 45s for southern California labels like Dolton and Planetary.

Today’s selection, ‘Star of the Show’ was written produced by Gates for the Planetary label (for which he’d also worked with Dorothy Berry) in 1965.

The tune is a great cross between a kind of Everly Brothers vibe with a 1965 garage/Stones wailing harmonica and guitar attack.

Despite the coolness of the record, it doesn’t appear to have gotten any radio play. What it did get was the twins a spot on the SoCal dance party show Shivaree. There’s a great clip on Youtube of their performance where you can see the Byrds in the background.

Their other Planetary 45, ‘Love or Money’ is also very cool in a similar vein.

I hope you dig the tune, and I’ll see you all next week.

Peace

Larry

 

________________________________________________

If you dig what we do here or over at Funky16Corners, please consider clicking on the Patreon link and throwing something into the yearly operating budget! Do it and we’ll send you some groovy Funky16Corners Radio Network (and related) stickers!

_______________________________________________

PS Head over to Funky16Corners for some soul.