Moby Grape – Rose Colored Eyes

Moby Grape

Listen/Download – Moby Grape – Rose Colored Eyes

Greetings all.

Welcome to a bright, hot, humid new week here at Iron Leg.

I always knew of Moby Grape (how could you miss that name), and first heard ‘Omaha’ as performed by the Golden Palominos, but it wasn’t until the Columbia Legacy 2CD Vintage – The Very Best of Moby Grape came out in 1993 that I really understood that they were far more than a goofy name.

Not only did they have a formidable line-up, but they managed to blend rock, psych, country and pop in a truly interesting way that should have put them in the first rank of 1960s California bands, instead of the list of also-rans (thanks in large part to record company miscalculations).

Today’s selection hails from their 1968 album ‘Wow’.

‘Rose Colored Eyes’, written by Bob Mosely is one of the groups finest psychedelic moments, and among my favorite West Coast psych tunes of the era.

Mixing slow, evenly paced acoustic guitar with a variety of modal/backward electric guitars, and the group’s harmony vocals, the song is dreamy, even when the pace picks up a bit toward the end. ‘Wow’ as a whole is perhaps their most interesting album, with hard driving rock, tunes like ‘Roe Colored Eyes’ and the slightly (soon to be extremely) twisted contributions of San Francisco legend Skip Spence.

Their original albums don’t turn up that often, but you can pick up all of their best stuff in reissue, so if you have yet to be Graped, dive in.

Until Next week.

Peace

Larry

 

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PS Head over to Funky16Corners for some soul.

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Iron Leg Radio Show Episode #85

Why hello there!

Playlist

Sugar Shoppe – Canada (Yorkville)
George Maharis – World Without Sunshine (Epic)
Judy Henske – Day To Day (Reprise)
Judy Henske – Dolphins In the Sea (Reprise)
Gordon Lightfoot – Spin Spin Spin (UA)

Vejtables – Anything (Autumn)
Vejtables – I Still Love You (Autumn)
Tikis – Darkest Night of the Year (Autumn)
Tikis – Pay Attention To Me (Autumn)
Steve Douglas – Caroline No (Mercury)

John Dankworth – Modesty Blaise Theme (20th Century)
Bob Breen – Ice Is Nice (20th Century)
Buzz and Bucky – Bay City (Amy)
Pat Boone – Molly (Tetragrammaton)
Pat Boone – What’s Gnawing At Me (Tetragrammaton)

Don Sebesky & the Jazz Rock Syndrome – I Dig Rock and Roll Music (Verve)
Don Sebesky & the Jazz Rock Syndrome – Somebody Groovy (Verve)
The Moog Machine – Yummy Yummy Yummy (Columbia)
The Moog Machine – Time of the Season (Columbia)
The Moog Machine – Jumping Jack Flash (Columbia)

Listen/Download -Iron Leg Radio Show Episode #85 – 170MB/256kbps

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It’s Iron Leg Radio time again!

This month we’re back digging into the pile of new and recent arrivals, as well as presenting a grip of cool things excavate from the crates!

Dig it all, and make sure to subscribe to the show as a podcast in iTunes.

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

See you 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.

Jefferson Airplane – Good Shepherd

Jefferson Airplane

Listen/Download – Jefferson Airplane – Good Shepherd

Greetings all.

Greetings all.

The tune I bring you today is a favorite of mine by the mighty Jefferson Airplane.

If you were a kid growing up in the 60s and 70s, the Airplane – especially Somebody To Love and White Rabbit – were all but unavoidable.

Later on, as the pop culture world started to regurgitate and redigest the 1960s, in movies and TV, those songs became sonic shorthand for what my friends and I always called ‘The 60s were a turbulent time!’, i.e. the clichéd opening line for countless documentaries about the decade.

As a kid I had a copy of ‘Surrealistic Pillow’ that I played to DEATH and beyond, and it remains one of my favorite 60s LPs to this day.

However, it wasn’t until 1990, when RCA put out the ‘2400 Fulton St’ CD compilation that I got a much broader, fully realized picture of the band’s music.

As is the case when you’ve only been exposed to the hits, digging into a really interesting band’s discography can be a revelation.

As I mentioned before, the Airplane’s best known songs became clichés, and Grace Slick remains today one of the most memorable icons of the 60s, both of these things taking away from a true appreciation of the band as musicians.

They were much more than their hits (but you already figured out where this was going, didn’t you), moving away from blissful folk rock jangle into somewhat heavier stuff, psychedelia and political content.

The albums they did between 1966 and 1972 (when they morphed – for better or worse –into Jefferson Starship) include some of the best sounds that the era had to offer.

The deeper you get into the band, the more likely you are to turn your ears from Grace and Marty, and appreciate the input of Kantner, Casady, and of course, Jorma Kaukonen.

It is from the hands of that last member that we get today’s selection, ‘Good Shepherd’, from 1969’s ‘Volunteers’.
Recorded in the spring of 1969, but nor released until the fall of that year (though they were performing material from the album that summer at Woodstock) ‘Volunteers’ features some of the group’s best songs, including one of my faves ‘Good Shepherd’.

The song itself is listed as ‘traditional’ and it is in fact a reworking/evolution of a tune that has its roots in and early 19th century hymn, and on up through the folk blues and Alan Lomax field recordings, which led to a number of folk revival-era versions of a song called ‘Blood Stained Banders’.

If you listen to versions of that song (like the one by Mike Seeger) you can definitely see the framework of what Jorma would take and turn into ‘Good Shepherd’.

He opens the song with acoustic guitar, then runs sharp electric leads over into the first verse (where the older title of the song makes an appearance).

The Airplane version of the song takes on a loping, mellow (yet as the layers pile on, quite heavy) decidedly West Coast caste, with Jorma taking the lead and the rest of the group joining in harmony.

Jorma takes a great – somewhat jarring – solo, followed by some wordless singing by Slick, and then back into the acoustic guitar.

It is a very groovy vibe indeed, and something cool if all you’ve ever heard were the big hits.

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

Peace

Larry

 

 

 

PS Head over to Funky16Corners for some soul.

Sopwith Camel – Cellophane Woman

Where’s Snoopy?

Listen/Download – Sopwith Camel – Cellophane Woman

Greetings all.

I have to start off this post by sending out thanks to my buddy Jeff Ash at AM then FM, who very kindly scored me a copy of this album a while back.

The Sopwith Camel were for a long time, one of those bands that I knew of, but hadn’t really heard, their name likely sticking in my mind via the Snoopy reference.

Then, back in the 80s I picked up a Euro import psych CD, that included the track you see before you today, the mighty ‘Cellophane Woman’.

As soon as I heard that, my eyes lit up and I was like “Gimme some more Sopwith Camel, baby!”

Then someone played their biggest hit 1967’s ‘Hello Hello’ and the light in my eyes went out, replaced by an arched eyebrow. I felt like the kid in the old Bob and Ray sketch who looks askew at Mr Science and asks if he’s being slipped “the old rubber peach”.

25-some years on, I have come to like ‘Hello Hello’ enough, but it still represents a sharp drop-off from the insane heat of ‘Cellophane Woman’.

The Sopwith Camel were one of the first San Francisco Bay area bands to have a radio hit, but seem almost to have been doomed by that very hit, dissolving later that year.

What I discovered when I finally got my hands on the LP, is that (fortunately) ‘Hello Hello’ is the anomaly in the Sopwith Camel arsenal.

‘Cellophane Woman’, which soaks a little John Lee Hooker in LSD and filters it through some garage punk, is an absolute killer (the guitar solo is especially groovy).

There are some other cool tracks on the album as well, including ‘Frantic Desolation’ and ‘Maybe In a Dream’.

The Sopwith Camel would regroup/reform at the end of the decade, eventually recording a second album in 1973.

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

Peace

Larry

 

 

 

PS Head over to Funky16Corners for some soul.