Midnight Records is closing its doors tomorrow for good. They were pretty much an institution here in NYC for over 25 years. When they started out in the late '70s they had a lot to do with kickstarting and nurturing the first real wave of interest in '60s psychedelia, and they even had their own reissue label. The owner may have been something of a prick, but some good people have worked there over the years. They'll still be maintaining their mail-order business, though. In any case, I picked up a few cool things in their clearance sale, including this one, recommended to me by the Prince of Pop.

Dave Morgan - Morgan (Ampex, 1971)

Dave Morgan has had quite the varied career over the years. He's written songs for the Move, pop-psych band Wishful Thinking, and others, and played with ELO and British pomp-rockers Magnum, in addition to various solo projects. The most drastic turnaround in his career seems to have occured in the '80s when he became a born-again Christian and started ministering and recording Christian-themed records. This was his first LP, and it's quite the little gem. Half the tracks are quiet, melodic, acoustic ballads remiscent of Paul McCartney, Emmit Rhodes, and Duncan Browne's self-titled album. The other half are Beatlesque pop-rockers, but with a loosey-goosey production approach instead of the Fabs' studio perfectionism.

I've gotten a wealth of cool reissues recently, so here's just a few quick thumbnail sketches of some of them:

The Brazda Brothers - s/t (Dominion, 1974)

Andy and Bystrik Gin Brazda were brothers of indeterminate Eastern European origin (Ukrainian?) who moved to Canada and subsequently recorded this album. It's basically mellow psych-folk with just a few more upbeat fuzz-guitar-and-organ psych moments. Somehow there's a poignant humility in the understated vocals and arrangements (the album was supposedly recorded in six hours). It has an endearingly lo-fi feel, and a real warmth that comes through like sunlight through a dirty window, if you'll forgive the purple prose. The original LP is a super-duper collector's item now. Lovely stuff.


Keith Christmas - Timeless & Strange (Castle, 2004)

This is a compilation featuring tracks from the first three albums by Keith Christmas, a British singer/songwriter who started out on the '60s folk circuit in London, coming up amid the likes of Bridget St. John, Nick Drake, et al. His first album, from 1969, was recorded with Mighty Baby as a backup band. Mighty Baby was the more psych-prog phase of legendary UK freakbeat mod/soul band the Action. Christmas had a fine, high voice and was no slouch on acoustic guitar. Some of the best moments here are beautiful, hypnotic ballads that bear some similarity to the likes of scenemates Nick Drake and Steve Tilston (no big surprise, since legendary Drake string arranger Robert Kirby lends a hand on a couple of tracks). Some of the songs venture into almost proggy territory, albeit in their own acoustic-oriented, low-key way, more like Roy Harper than, say, ELP, although Christmas did subsequently release a couple of albums on ELP's short-lived Manticore label.


Twin Engine - s/t (Rev-Ola, 2004)

This isn't technically a reissue, it's the first release of a 1971 recording that never saw the light of day before. Twin Engine was an L.A. duo that included Randy Naylor of the Poor. For that matter, until recently, the Poor (who were a great band in the Buffalo Springfield vein) never had their stuff officially released either. It's co-produced by Joey Stec from Curt Boettcher's group the Millennium and Blues Magoos keyboardist Joey Scala. Byrds Clarence White and Chris Hillman play on it. As you might intuit, it's a blend of country-rock, folk-rock, and West Coast pop-psych, and an excellent one at that--simultaneously ethereal and earthy, and considerably more inspired than what the Byrds were doing by that time.