While most of the San Francisco bands during this era were experimenting with long drawn out jams that soared to new highs of being out of tune and out of time (and just plain boring to this listener), their neighbors 45 minutes south in San Jose and the San Francisco bay peninsula (aka my home turf) were cranking out three minute masterpieces such as this that epitomize the psychedelic experience but distill it to a palatable length.
The Stained Glass, out of San Jose, were signed to RCA for three singles, of which this is the final one and their finest. These fellas obviously spent a lot of time digesting "Revolver" and while it may be looked at as a mere copy, the songwriting of this track is truly top notch.
from 1967...
6 comments:
Absolutely beautiful... I love it! The droning vocals in the background are a trip!
As usual, a wow! I don't get here as often as I'd like, so when I do, it's like a trip to the record shop. Thanks for all your work and generosity.
A firm favorite since the 80's, used to crop up on a number compilations. I really dig the b-side 'Mediocre Me' too - it's not on par with 'Scene' but is undeservedly forgotten. And, the first LP 'Crazy Horse Roads' is good too, albeit quite different from this.
Revolver is not a bad album to emulate. Really nice tune. I noticed they were on RCA, I wonder if they got scooped up at the same time Jefferson Airplane were signed to the label.
Now, c'mon, dude... you don't need to slag the Grateful Dead -- that is who you're talking about here, isn't it -- to extol the virtues of these grand little three-minute nuggets.
I've been a hardcore Deadhead since my college days, and have collected their studio albums and many hours of bootleg tapes going back to '66 -- although that early period, '66 and '67, wasn't my favorite period of Dead as they sounded a bit too harsh and "speedy" back then; it's been said that if it weren't for the big-time major-label production values, the tracks on the first Dead album would've sounded like pretty much every other garage-psych band coming out of California back then. It wasn't until '68 or '69 that they'd evolved into that stretched-out, trippy, dreamy, meltdown-jamming Dead that I came to know and love as a young art-school stoner in the '70s.
Still, that said... thanks a bunch for this blog, and for posting this here 45... because as much as I love a good solid 25-minute Dark Star, I still really loves me some old three-minute garage-psych 45s.
Mike, we are all entitled to our own opinions. In order for me to post music via the "fair use" law, I have to provide criticism and/or some type of education. I did not mention any bands by name. I could have been talking about the Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver, etc.
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