west coast pop art experimental band

...once long ago in perhaps another land much kinder to impoverished heads the greatest rocking outfits and lonesome troubadours found their true test of real magnitude by finding the quickest route to the cutout bin with their contribution to ecstasy via the long play record...indeed back in the day any and all wax that lingered in dusty racks of unwantedness was semingly ripe for examination...in high density urbania short lease stores often opened for a few weeks to sell the mountain of hot platters that the squares just would not befriend...the whole elektra back catalog was once (roughly around 1974) just sitting there in such stores waiting for a friendly head to take it home and spin the goodness...that's right, as unlikely as that may appear in this collector scum rip off age, clear light/ cyrus faryar/cosmic sounds/ars nova/pat sky/holy modal rounders, the whole shebang was just begging to go to a hep pad for just a few pennies each...majestic pop purveyors 'big star' showed their importance by having both LPs deleted and on sale for dirt cheap in quick time double smart...the then lost six oh punks/psych rockers like chocolate watchband/blues magoos/? 'n th' mysterians, everything curt boettcher was involved with all took the short road to the cutout bin and on to head pads everywhere...west coast pop art experimental band showed their own enormity of musical cool by nestling with the aforementioned, taking up residence in the racks of fabulous fabicity just waiting the chance to spin for the discerning...on offer here is a tribute to those great and wonderful cheap times...the first ever wcpaeb disk (pre reprise) from the small to hardly there fifo label of hollywood...tracks 1/11 make up that wax and the rest were just lost in the cloudy mists of goneness...dig once again the sound of sunset strip when the teens had to fight for the right to groove...

...incredible four LPs from the WCPAEB whose whole basic sound is grounded in los angeles acid punk and spreads out from there taking in mersey beat/folkrock/psych-pop/and many other paths with nods to zappa (they do a credible 'help i'm a rock') and also joe byrds USA...they were observers and participants of the hollywood/sunset strip scene with some of the most cutting lyrics that tore apart the phoney-hippies that populated the area, full on anti fuzz diatribes and anti war protest that really told it like it was (is)...just like zappa they alienated the very audience that they sought hence the wax didn't shift many copies and found its way to the deletion bin and from there onto the real heads that understood the message these latter day 'beatnix' were trying to put out(the lyrics have a beatnik honesty with the poetic visuals flowing)...each LP seems to carry on from the last, the socio-political concerns never abate while the music changes over the four as the LA scene developed (country rock pops up on the last one though as that album plays some of the older sound crops up nicely making the four into a song cycle which indeed these works are... younger cats could do worse than learn about 60s counter-culture from these missives from the pop underground and by the same criteria older heads will know why 'suzy and bobby love to watch fires')...good use of subtle stereo gimmicks which are always fun when digging combos like this who had proper studio savvy and knew exactly when and why to use such gubbings and not make the tunes secondary or irrelevant...