Just thought I'd mention; I was just listening to a reissue of the first (1967) record by the British pop-psych band Nirvana, the cult-classic concept album The Story of Simon Simopath. When it ended, my CD player switched over to the new Belle and Sebastian album, and I swear to God I couldn't tell the difference. Make of it what you will.

The 31st of February - s/t

This trio usually gains attention mainly because of the members' subsequent activities. Drummer Butch Trucks became a founding member of the Allman Brothers Band, bassist/songwriter David Brown went on to play with Boz Scaggs and tons of other people on the San Francisco Fillmore scene, and singer/songwriter/guitarist Scott Boyer started the great cult-status country-rock band Cowboy. The 31st of February's lone, self-titled 1969 album, however, has little to do with any of those groups. It's a masterpiece of psychedelic folk-rock. Some of the tracks sport the standard orchestrated pop-psych/baroque feel of the Left Banke/Zombies, et al, and are excellent in that vein. Even more impressive though, are the more tripped-out cuts--some of the most acid-drenched folk-rock you're likely to hear, masterfully produced and performed. On Boyer's "Porcelain Mirrors" and a cover of the Buffy St. Marie-penned folk song "Codine," for instance, the psychedelia is provided not by everything-and-the-kitchen-sink arrangements overloaded with "far-out" cliches. Instead, excellent use is made of space, and the wide-open arrangements are expanded by the subtle, extremely powerful use of effects carefully modifying the band's instruments. There's a spare, haunted feel to these songs that's as beatiful as it is chilling. There are also a couple of more uptempo, San Francisco-style psych-rock tunes that break things up a bit and work quite well in context. The musicianship, vocals, songwriting, and production are all top-notch and support each other to put this album head and shoulders above many of its contemporaries. Did I already mention the word "masterpiece?" PS - the original LP goes for beaucoup bucks, so don't go crazy. Get the Italian CD reissue, which comes in a nice-looking digipack.

Just a quick word about a monumental find in the annals of Incredibly Strange Music. This gem turned up for $1.99 in the ol' bins.

Dick Summer - Lovin' Touch

I'd never heard of this guy before, but apparently he was one of the first underground rock DJs in the Boston area in the '60s, who went on to release several "successful" books of his "poetry." In 1971, he decided to lend his velvety voice to vinyl, where this ludicrous rube comes off like a cross between a hip Rod McKuen and a (very) square Ken Nordine. The incomparably bad poems he recites here are part of a loose concept dedicated to Summer's "lady" (with whom he is pictured in idyllic hippie bliss on the LP cover). The music he reads over is a combo platter of acoustic muzak and vague, beatless folk-psych that I might be tempted to call proto-ambient if I was plied with alcohol. On top of it all, he goes so far out of his way to seem organic and natural in his delivery that he sounds either drugged, lobotomized, or both. This quality seemingly served Summer in good stead in his subsequent career doing commercial voiceovers. This album isn't just amusing in a knowing, isn't-that-ironic way, this catastrophe is laugh-out-loud uproarious. I was cracking up listening to it on headphones in the record store. I defy anyone to maintain a straight face through a single track.

Of the Wreckers and the Wrecked

I'm not sure if the members of that esteemed assemblage of LA '60s studio musicians commonly known as the Wrecking Crew have ever been represented by a book, but they certainly should be. Anybody out there game for the task? The stories that Hal Blaine, Carol Kaye, Larry Knechtel, Joe Osborne, Glen Campbell, et al must have to tell would be fascinating not only for the countless hit albums they've played on (Beach Boys, Fifth Dimension, the Mamas & the Papas, Johnny Rivers, etc., ad infinitum), but also for the misses. For every Monkees session on these cats' gig list, there was probably one for something like:

Bob Ray - Initiation of a Mystic

Around 1968, the aformentioned pop/blue-eyed soul singer Johnny Rivers, the king of the mid-'60s Sunset Strip, talked somebody into helping him start his own label, Soul City. His own turned-on pop-psych album Realizations came out on Soul City that year, as did what I believe to be the only release by one Bob Ray. Judging from the evidence here, Ray (who looks like he escaped from a contemporaneous Moody Blues photo shoot) was sort of the Donovan of Hollywood Blvd. The combination of bouncy flower-power pop tunes, canyons-of-your-mind folkiness, and orchestrated pop-psych is very much in the same vein as the good Mr. Leitch, but never overtly enough to be derivative. And the bottom line is that he was pretty damn good at it; effective singer, gloriously hippy-dippy songwriter, the whole package. Plus, the top-notch support of Blaine, Osborne, and co. pushes the whole thing across the finish line. Hint; if you come across an obscure '60s album by an unfamiliar artist, with session credits bearing the names discussed here, odds are its probably pretty decent, so take a chance.