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...pearls before swine, one of the greatest combos from the hippy years, mainly the vision of tom rapp (with floating personel as time went by) were signed originally to ESP-Disk thereby signifying their worthiness as all ESP wax is of very high import (even the play thing they put out)...legend has it the incarnate pearls, down in their hometown of florida got enough bread together to press up some demos of their tunes and send them out to various possibly interested parties, one of which being the aformentioned ESP-Disk...said demo disk was of very low sound quality, almost inaudible but there was enough presense and mystery to make the heads at ESP offer to bring them to NYC and lay down some tuneage at the IMPACT SOUND studio (aka,ESP laboratories) and so born was the debut ONE NATION UNDERGROUND, a marvellous concoction of wobbly ethereal folkiness mixed in with some avant moves (morse code blips/bleeps, ocillators)...it's a strange sound, almost (on a budget) baroque in places, as autoharps, celeste, banjo, finger cymbals get busy with garage band organ noise all swimming in a vat of fine sunshine acid, if richard farina hadn't took his bike ride he'd quite possibly gone in this direction as he was fine tuneing his own brand of mountain dew urban folk in early '66, no problem seeing him get groovy on the LSD and getting wiggy...the arrangements ain't no standard folk rock pop, more off centre, a haunting beauty pervades the work, a thin web of otherness surrounds the listener, at once removing reality from the physical plane, shifting time into a melting flow of gauseian haziness, a calm decends bringing inner peace for a few fleeting moments...unlike some, this wax ain't lost one iota of poetic power and beauty in the four decades of its existance, as quietly stunning as it ever was...
...second pearls waxing again released via ESP-Disk, it's their anti-war missive coming as it did in the year of the barricades, 1968, but this ain't no shouting and poking fun slap in the face like the fugs and country joe/fish, it's much more considered and obtuse...starting with a recording of some old cat who'd been in the crimean war back in the 1850s and the penultimate ending with florence nightingale also from that fracas, so this ain't no ordinary anti LBJ diatribe...whispered background vocals, tinkling bells, wood/wind all combine to produce a fine canvas for tom to lay down his ideas with his soft dark melancholy vocals, there weren't too much sounding like this back in the day and not so much today, though some undoubtably try to get near the essence of what makes this LP such a dusty garret experience, a late night ponderation on the state of things...beautiful and pastorial yet doomed, floating effortless with hope but recognising the sad knowledge that mankind will one day exist only in legends wrapped in a faraway universe...'only the dead have seen the end of war' was quoted on the sleeve note, not one thing makes that any less true right now...
...here's where pbs get picked up by a major and take on the pressures involved in that onerous task known as working the marketplace...toms solution to such wouldbe rigors is a set of mournful sounding minstrelsy ensuring that only the most dedicated countercultural hepsters will ever bother themselves to pick this wax up...as with all PBS the more spins a cat gives to the disc, the more is released...good sound on this platter which made a change at the time from the experimental avant pressings E.S.P Disk liked to get busy with...also some cats may wish to know the hype sheet that came with this says 'this album is so good the pearls could become more popular than john lennon'...some rec.co. suit getting hopeful in a very unorthodox fashion, calmness was not in the forefront of thinking that day, though it's most likely he hadn't actually heard the disc or even knew of whom he was writing, such was the tenuous need for correct copy write skills apparently...
...second of toms wax for a major label and this one sees him taking the bumking express down to nashville where he got some help from the turned on cats from 'area code 615' and others...not noticably country as such and the whole shebang is yet another chipper and fine offering from one of the standout artists of yesteryear ...recommended for all who wish to be th'recipient of a pure groove...
...temporal and geographical pingpong happening on this slice, what with olde worlde folk mixing it up with colonial mountain country vibes having an equal look in...another bargain bin filler when first on release it has since become a desired item though some 'johnny-come-lately' naysayers seem to get finicky at the recording of some tracks down nashville way but thats their lookout...all a hepcat really needs to know is this is another nifty half hour from tom&co which is welcome as a fresh bong and that's welcome any time...
...ah, the cutout bin, the second hand deletion bin that so many small disc emporiums used to have tucked away in the dusty recesses that only busto-crusto heads took notice of, the broke down hep cats made a bee line for the aforesaid bin as therein laid the jewels of long lost fashion, psychedelic overspill that no one seemed to want except the right thinking cats who knew to sort the wheat from thechaff and come up with the goods...the beauteous debris of rock was waiting to be discovered and nurtured, the likes of WCPAEB/13th floor elevators/silver apples just called out for a friendly open face to gather them up...four decades ago tom rapp/PBS had residence in the bargain bin and then onto hepster pads for a mere pittance, hence they were the reefered queit darlings for many a year until completely falling off any and every radar for another two plus decades...beautifully stoned and tranquil songs just right for late night stoner pads, make up this the last waxing under the PBS name...once heard the voice of tom is not forgotten...
...pearls before swine, one of the greatest combos from the hippy years, mainly the vision of tom rapp (with floating personel as time went by) were signed originally to ESP-Disk thereby signifying their worthiness as all ESP wax is of very high import (even the play thing they put out)...legend has it the incarnate pearls, down in their hometown of florida got enough bread together to press up some demos of their tunes and send them out to various possibly interested parties, one of which being the aformentioned ESP-Disk...said demo disk was of very low sound quality, almost inaudible but there was enough presense and mystery to make the heads at ESP offer to bring them to NYC and lay down some tuneage at the IMPACT SOUND studio (aka,ESP laboratories) and so born was the debut ONE NATION UNDERGROUND, a marvellous concoction of wobbly ethereal folkiness mixed in with some avant moves (morse code blips/bleeps, ocillators)...it's a strange sound, almost (on a budget) baroque in places, as autoharps, celeste, banjo, finger cymbals get busy with garage band organ noise all swimming in a vat of fine sunshine acid, if richard farina hadn't took his bike ride he'd quite possibly gone in this direction as he was fine tuneing his own brand of mountain dew urban folk in early '66, no problem seeing him get groovy on the LSD and getting wiggy...the arrangements ain't no standard folk rock pop, more off centre, a haunting beauty pervades the work, a thin web of otherness surrounds the listener, at once removing reality from the physical plane, shifting time into a melting flow of gauseian haziness, a calm decends bringing inner peace for a few fleeting moments...unlike some, this wax ain't lost one iota of poetic power and beauty in the four decades of its existance, as quietly stunning as it ever was...
...second pearls waxing again released via ESP-Disk, it's their anti-war missive coming as it did in the year of the barricades, 1968, but this ain't no shouting and poking fun slap in the face like the fugs and country joe/fish, it's much more considered and obtuse...starting with a recording of some old cat who'd been in the crimean war back in the 1850s and the penultimate ending with florence nightingale also from that fracas, so this ain't no ordinary anti LBJ diatribe...whispered background vocals, tinkling bells, wood/wind all combine to produce a fine canvas for tom to lay down his ideas with his soft dark melancholy vocals, there weren't too much sounding like this back in the day and not so much today, though some undoubtably try to get near the essence of what makes this LP such a dusty garret experience, a late night ponderation on the state of things...beautiful and pastorial yet doomed, floating effortless with hope but recognising the sad knowledge that mankind will one day exist only in legends wrapped in a faraway universe...'only the dead have seen the end of war' was quoted on the sleeve note, not one thing makes that any less true right now...
...here's where pbs get picked up by a major and take on the pressures involved in that onerous task known as working the marketplace...toms solution to such wouldbe rigors is a set of mournful sounding minstrelsy ensuring that only the most dedicated countercultural hepsters will ever bother themselves to pick this wax up...as with all PBS the more spins a cat gives to the disc, the more is released...good sound on this platter which made a change at the time from the experimental avant pressings E.S.P Disk liked to get busy with...also some cats may wish to know the hype sheet that came with this says 'this album is so good the pearls could become more popular than john lennon'...some rec.co. suit getting hopeful in a very unorthodox fashion, calmness was not in the forefront of thinking that day, though it's most likely he hadn't actually heard the disc or even knew of whom he was writing, such was the tenuous need for correct copy write skills apparently...
...second of toms wax for a major label and this one sees him taking the bumking express down to nashville where he got some help from the turned on cats from 'area code 615' and others...not noticably country as such and the whole shebang is yet another chipper and fine offering from one of the standout artists of yesteryear ...recommended for all who wish to be th'recipient of a pure groove...
...ah, the cutout bin, the second hand deletion bin that so many small disc emporiums used to have tucked away in the dusty recesses that only busto-crusto heads took notice of, the broke down hep cats made a bee line for the aforesaid bin as therein laid the jewels of long lost fashion, psychedelic overspill that no one seemed to want except the right thinking cats who knew to sort the wheat from thechaff and come up with the goods...the beauteous debris of rock was waiting to be discovered and nurtured, the likes of WCPAEB/13th floor elevators/silver apples just called out for a friendly open face to gather them up...four decades ago tom rapp/PBS had residence in the bargain bin and then onto hepster pads for a mere pittance, hence they were the reefered queit darlings for many a year until completely falling off any and every radar for another two plus decades...beautifully stoned and tranquil songs just right for late night stoner pads, make up this the last waxing under the PBS name...once heard the voice of tom is not forgotten...
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