50 Foot Hose

Wheeze and whirl, clank and bang with oodles of brain popping doodles spreading itself over some pretty nifty west coast acid folk rocking, psyched hippies and electrical boffins spraying outta-space vibes from their mind liquefying paisley attachments.
Cork Marcheschi was/is the head honcho of the combo and back in the early 60s he was playing the rock'n'roll /R&B noise in North Beach, San Francisco plus at the same time discovering older hipsters like Edgar Varese and began setting about joining together these seemingly different strands of music whilst also digging poetic ideas that had first been put forth by the Dadaist movement two generations and a continent away.
After playing gigs at the Fillmore Auditorium during the nascent flower power days the 50 Footers managed to sign with Mercury Records subsidiary Limelight and recorded Cauldron, only to have it released just before years end of 1967 enabling the record to promptly disappear from view and journey into the 'netherworld of strange wax' where it remained for 30 years until it was released again in the mid nineties.
The easiest way for the uninitiated to get a handle on this first LP is to imagine a heavier more tripped out version of the 'United States of America' album, plenty of electrification FX over beaty acid rock blare with female vocals wailing the songs, still sounding fresh today thanks to the nouveaux hippy 'noise/folk/weird' practioners making this sort of bleat more acceptable /accessable in the post modern hyper real age of todays listening habits.
The other album up for consideration is 'Sing Like Scaffold', a nineties disc with a 'reformed' band which by all laws of rock'n'roll should have been 'not too hot' as is usually the way with reformation of old hippy combos, but no, its a mighty fine and worthy blast of 'kosmichemusik' style madness, Euro-avant grooves hooking up with 50s B-movie soundtrack blabber and smoke.
Both albums add up to more than a wonderful time spent idling away in the smoked up spaces of a sunny afternoon with nary a care for the outside 'square dadz of normality'.

2 comments:

  1. many many thanks for reposting this
    (i hope per my request) i've searched high and low for this. thanks again

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  2. No problem, both are great sounds but not too many people take advantage of it so get it while its available as R/S like to delete stuff that lies dormant for awhile.

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