DC Share Revival: Video

Showing posts with label Video. Show all posts

Sunday, August 3, 2025

Psychedelic Jukebox: [1967] Strawberry Alarm Clock - Incense & Peppermints

Incense and Peppermints by Strawberry Alarm Clock is one of the most instantly recognizable songs of the psychedelic era, yet the full scope of its creation, execution, and aftermath reveals a story far more layered than its kaleidoscopic surface might suggest. Released in May 1967 and peaking at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 by November that year, the track became a defining symbol of late-60s counterculture. However, behind its success lies a tangled tale of industry maneuvering, accidental stardom, artistic discontent, and fractured identity.

Strawberry Alarm Clock emerged in Los Angeles from the fusion of two local garage outfits—Thee Sixpence and Waterfyrd Traene. This merger resulted in a lineup composed of Mark Weitz (keyboards), Ed King (guitar), Lee Freeman (rhythm guitar), Randy Seol (drums, percussion), George Bunnell (bass, vocals), and later Steve Bartek (flute, arrangements). Each member arrived with an array of musical disciplines: Weitz had a classical background, King was steeped in R&B structures, Bunnell brought jazz sensitivity, and Freeman had immersed himself in blues and Eastern modalities. Their combined repertoire produced a swirling, patchwork sound defined by the incorporation of harpsichord, organ, sitar-like guitar tones, vibraphone, and even baroque counterpoints.

The origins of Incense and Peppermints lay in a studio improvisation. Weitz crafted the organ-heavy motif, and King followed with a midsection. These elements were brought to Original Sound Studio in Hollywood, where the band, under the guidance of producer Frank Slay and manager Bill Holmes, was expected to yield material quickly for the All-American label. Holmes, in pursuit of commercial viability, handed the instrumental to freelance songwriters John S. Carter and Tim Gilbert, who constructed the track's now-iconic surrealist lyrics. The content—free-associative, cryptic, and fragmentary—echoed Dadaist writing more than typical pop fare, with lines like "Beatniks and politics, nothing is new" and "Incense and peppermints, meaningless nouns" providing a disorienting textual overlay.

The band, however, rejected the lyrics outright. None of the official vocalists wanted to sing them. In a twist that has since become legendary, 16-year-old Greg Munford, a high school friend of the producers and present at the session by coincidence, volunteered to record the vocal. His youthful detachment and slightly nasal delivery provided precisely the sound the producers sought. As a result, the lead voice on the band’s only number-one hit belongs to someone who was never officially part of the group. Munford would later join Thee Sixpence briefly for live performances but never again recorded with the band.

Initially released as a B-side to The Birdman of Alkatrash on All-American Records (catalog number 3345), Incense and Peppermints was flipped by DJs at Los Angeles radio stations such as KHJ, KRLA, and KFWB, who found the trippy B-side far more intriguing. When Uni Records acquired the distribution rights and re-released it under the newly minted name Strawberry Alarm Clock, the single took off nationally. It entered the Billboard chart in September and reached number one on November 25, 1967, displacing Lulu's To Sir With Love. It remained on the chart for 16 weeks, topped Cash Box for two consecutive weeks, and ultimately sold over one million copies, earning a gold disc from the RIAA in December 1967. According to a Rolling Stone retrospective from 1997, "Incense and Peppermints was the anthem of a generation that didn't know if it was being sold something or inventing it all on its own."

The song’s instrumental construction is a study in organized spontaneity. The Farfisa organ motif, paired with a sharp fuzz-tone guitar and syncopated cowbell, created a hypnotic cadence. The middle-eight, contributed by Ed King, introduced a jazz-influenced harmonic shift. According to later interviews, some of the track’s defining flourishes resulted from accidental key changes or experimental decisions made on the fly. One such instance was Weitz striking a minor chord unexpectedly—it sounded so dissonant and eerie that producer Slay insisted they keep it. In another take, session percussionist Gene Estes added tambourine overdubs to heighten the song's off-kilter rhythm.

Yet despite being the musical architects of the track, Weitz and King were not credited as songwriters. The official writing credit listed Carter and Gilbert, leading to royalty losses and years of frustration for the band members. Slay and Holmes, who owned the publishing rights through Trans-Tone Music, denied the band's contribution in writing, placing them in a powerless position. This breach of trust sowed early discord and would haunt the group in subsequent years. In a 2007 interview, Ed King lamented, "We were just kids in a studio making noise that turned into magic. They took our names off the credits and cashed the checks."

Their debut album, also titled Incense and Peppermints, was released in October 1967 via Uni Records and reached number 11 on the Billboard 200. While many expected a light collection of psychedelic singles, the album revealed more intricate ambitions. It opened with The World's on Fire, an 8-minute improvisational suite showcasing vibraphone solos, chaotic drum fills, and flute arrangements by a then-teenaged Steve Bartek. Bartek, though not officially listed in the album credits due to his age, was central to the band’s arrangements and would later gain fame as guitarist and arranger for Oingo Boingo. Tracks like Rainy Day Mushroom Pillow and Strawberries Mean Love incorporated unusual time signatures and instrumentation rarely heard in pop music of the era. Critics from Crawdaddy! and Mojo Navigator noted the band’s curious juxtaposition of nursery rhyme melodies with modal jazz harmonics.

Following their peak, the band attempted to maintain momentum with Tomorrow, which reached number 23 in early 1968. But as intra-band conflict escalated—exacerbated by the sudden departure of Gary Lovetro, legal disputes over the band name initiated by Holmes, and a revolving door of personnel—their cohesion fractured. The World in a Sea Shell, released in late 1968, saw the group pressured to record outside compositions, some penned again by Carter and Gilbert, which diluted the artistic autonomy they had fought to preserve. Although the album featured contributions from Carole King and Barry Mann, its orchestral polish alienated fans of the earlier, more improvisational style. The LP barely cracked the top 200.

By 1970, their sound had veered toward a gentler, more harmony-based format. The addition of new vocalist Jimmy Pitman nudged the band closer to folk-rock, but this incarnation failed to gain traction. Ed King, disillusioned, left and later joined Lynyrd Skynyrd, where he co-wrote Sweet Home Alabama and Saturday Night Special. By 1971, the original Strawberry Alarm Clock disbanded. Occasional reunions followed in the decades to come, with a version of the band appearing in the 1970 cult film Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (directed by Russ Meyer with screenplay by Roger Ebert) and performing into the 2010s at festivals like Psychedelicatessen and Echoes West.

You might also like the song [1967] Kaleidoscope - Keep Your Mind Open.

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Friday, August 1, 2025

Psychedelic Jukebox: [1967] Stoics - Enough Of What I Need

The Stoics originated in San Antonio, Texas, a city that during the mid-1960s had a lively, though fragmented, youth music culture. The band’s lineup, pieced together from collector interviews and scattered liner notes, comprised Bill Ash on lead guitar, Al Acosta on lead vocals, Roy Quillan handling rhythm guitar, Mike Marechal on bass, and Sam Allen behind the drums. Though the group's exact formation year is unknown, evidence from San Antonio music archives and concert flyers suggests they were active between late 1965 and mid-1967. Bill Ash is perhaps the most traceable member, later joining The Children, a San Antonio psych-rock band known for their 1968 album “Rebirth” on Scepter Records.

The A-side track, “Enough Of What I Need,” is paired with the B-side “Hate,”. These tracks were recorded in early 1967 in an unnamed local studio, likely a modest facility in San Antonio. The session appears to have been recorded live to tape on four-track equipment, a detail corroborated by the raw, unpolished sound quality and occasional tape hiss evident on the 2023 Okto-Bone Rekkids reissue (catalog OB-16). This reissue, the first official and authorized since the original pressing, sourced the original master tapes, preserved in private hands by a collector identified only as “J.T.” in liner notes. The remastering was overseen by engineer Luis Hernandez, who described the original tapes as “remarkably intact, with a vibrant midrange and punchy drums that retained their 1967 authenticity.”

“Enough Of What I Need” showcases a brooding minor-key progression that aligns with the darker currents of mid-60s garage rock. The song opens with a descending bass riff by Marechal, underpinned by Marechal’s use of a Fender Precision Bass, a favored model among Texas players at the time. This bass line, combined with Ash’s distorted guitar—reportedly played on a 1964 Gibson SG—sets an ominous tone that is interrupted intermittently by Acosta’s plaintive vocal delivery. Acosta’s voice has been described by Texas music historian Clara Estrella as “a tortured lament that balances adolescent desperation with a nascent punk attitude, hinting at the angst that would later fuel 1970s punk.” The lyrical refrain, partially reconstructed from collector recordings, runs: “You got to, gotta love me babe... give me enough of what I need,” encapsulating themes of dependency and emotional turmoil rather than the more common love-and-fun tropes of contemporaneous garage songs.

The B-side, “Hate,” carries a heavier, more aggressive feel. Its opening drum pattern—a syncopated floor tom rhythm performed by Allen—provides a militaristic backbone over which Quillan’s rhythm guitar churns. The songwriting credits list J. Cutrer for “Hate,” a name otherwise lost to history, though speculation among Texas music collectors suggests Cutrer may have been a local songwriter or roadie who contributed compositions to area bands. The lyrics of “Hate” are even more elusive; however, one line widely quoted from a surviving demo tape fragment reads: “Hate is the fire that burns inside, can’t cool it down or run and hide,” which amplifies the raw emotional edge of the recording. The track ends abruptly, consistent with a live-tape take that likely eschewed post-production overdubs.

The Stoics’ existence is barely documented beyond this single. No Billboard or Cash Box listings mention the band, and archival searches of regional newspapers like the San Antonio Express-News from 1966-68 yield no concert reviews or ads for the group. Their presence on regional radio was minimal, though oral histories from collectors suggest that KTSA Radio played “Enough Of What I Need” briefly before allegedly banning it. This purported ban was possibly due to the song’s emotionally intense vocal style or the ambiguous, possibly suggestive lyrics, though no station logs or memos confirm this.

The band reportedly performed at local teen clubs such as The Hideaway and The Panther Room, which were San Antonio hotspots for emerging garage acts. An intriguing note comes from an interview with Carlos Mendoza, a local DJ active in the 1960s, who recalled the Stoics “had a street-level following in the West Side barrio and were closely tied with the Capinch gang, which ironically gave them protection and an audience but also limited their appeal beyond that community.” This intersection of gang culture and music scenes was a hallmark of San Antonio’s fractured social scenery during the period, providing a rare ethnographic dimension to the band’s ephemeral career.

The Stoics’ sole 45 is now one of the most coveted Texas garage collectibles. Prices for an original pressing have reportedly reached as high as $1,200 in mint condition at specialist auctions and private sales. Their inclusion on compilations such as Acid Visions Vol. 3 (released 2009 by Radioactive Records) and Texas Psych: Volume 1 (2021, Sundazed Music) helped introduce them to a wider audience, yet their mystique remains intact due to the absence of further material.

The reissue of “Enough Of What I Need” in 2023 by Okto-Bone Rekkids was accompanied by an extensive liner essay by garage historian Alaric Stone. Stone describes the band as “a sonic snapshot of a group caught between adolescent yearning and the wild, unpredictable cultural forces of 1960s Texas.” He notes that the track’s “distorted guitars and clipped vocal phrasing anticipate the punk explosion a decade later, situating the Stoics as proto-punk prophets hidden in plain sight.”

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Monday, June 30, 2025

Psychedelic Jukebox: [196X] Pearl Divers - Riding On A Rainbow

Up next, I’ve got something for everyone who loves rare 60s gems: The band’s called Pearl Divers — a name many have probably never heard, since these guys never really made it big. Their song Riding On A Rainbow is one of those garage and psychedelic tracks that pop up on obscure compilations and make collectors’ hearts beat faster. A bit of lo-fi, a bit of organ, a bit of daydream — and above all, pure 60s vibes. So lean back, turn up the psychedelic jukebox — here are the Pearl Divers with Riding On A Rainbow.