The Mojo Collection. Various Mojo Magazine
playpen pop and grown-up acid rock.
Record label: EMI Columbia (UK) Capitol (US)
Produced: Norman Smith
Recorded: Abbey Road Studios, London; March 15–July 5, 1967
Released: August 5, 1967
Chart peaks: 6 (UK) 131 (US)
Personnel: Syd Barrett (g, v); Roger Waters (b, v); Richard Wright (o, p); Nick Mason (d); Peter Brown (e)
Track listing: Astronomy Domine; Lucifer Sam; Matilda Mother; Flaming (S/US); Pow R To H; Take Up Thy Stethoscope And Walk; Interstellar Overdrive; The Gnome; Chapter 24; Scarecrow; Bike
Running time: 41.57 (stereo); 42.13 (mono)
Current CD: E21S31261 (stereo edition); 724385985720 (mono edition boxed set). The mono mix was the one the band oversaw and is, in many respects, superior to the stereo master.
Further listening: Relics (1971); the spectre of Syd Barrett looms large over Piper follow-up, A Saucerful Of Secrets (1968); Pink Floyd/1967 – The First Three Singles (1997)
Further reading: Syd Barrett And The Pink Floyd (Julian Palacios, 1998); Pink Floyd: Piper At The Gates Of Dawn 33 1/3 (John Cavanagh, 2003); www.pinkfloyd.co.uk
Download: HMV Digital; iTunes
‘The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn was Syd,’ declares Roger Waters, ‘and Syd was a genius.’ Having built up a keen underground club following, Pink Floyd went overground early in 1967. Despite their reputation, two singles – Arnold Layne and See Emily Play – were disarmingly melodic and surprisingly successful. However, the Floyd always saw themselves as an albums band. Some critics, notably Pete Townshend (who said the LP was ‘fucking awful’), doubted whether their live performances would work in the studio, but history proved them wrong: Piper virtually defines British psychedelia. It was completed in just 16 sessions at EMI’s Abbey Road Studios over four months, several of those purely for overdubs. It was long enough, though, for the group to push in two seemingly irreconcilable musical directions, a division that in retrospect clearly mirrored Barrett’s increasingly fractured mental state. Extended pieces born of onstage jamming (Astronomy Domini; Interstellar Overdrive; POW R To H; Take Up Thy Stethoscope And Walk) sat oddly alongside Barrett’s nursery-rhyme fantasies (Matilda Mother; The Gnome; Bike; Scarecrow), a dichotomy emphasised by further contradictions (electric/acoustic; cosmic/ rural; blissful/fearful; adult/child).
Holding these extremes together inevitably led to conflicts, not least because EMI staff Norman Smith was keen to impress with his first production job. ‘Working with Syd was sheer hell and there are no pleasant memories,’ he said later, citing Barrett’s unpredictability and unwillingness to play songs (or even parts) the same way twice. Incredibly, despite Barrett’s habit of handling the mixing controls as if he were painting a canvas, Smith turned in a remarkable job, capturing both dimensions of the band’s work without sacrificing the edginess or the childlike innocence. ‘Gadzooks, it’s foot-tapping stuff,’ wrote a puzzled Nick Jones in Melody Maker. ‘“Avant garde”, I think it’s called.’ It wasn’t the last time the Floyd would baffle the critics, but with Barrett barely able to function within weeks of the album’s release, it was a rather less extraordinary Floyd that re-emerged without him.
Jefferson Airplane
Surrealistic Pillow
San Francisco’s psychedelic secrets get their first airing.
Record label: RCA Victor
Produced: Rick Jarrard
Recorded: RCA Studios, Hollywood; October 31–November 22, 1966
Released: September 1967 (UK) February 1967 (US)
Chart peaks: None (UK) 3 (US)
Personnel: Grace Slick (v, p, k, recorder); Paul Kantner (g, v); Jorma Kaukonen (g, v); Jack Casady (b, g); Spencer Dryden (d); Marty Balin (v, g); Jerry Garcia (g, musical and spiritual adviser); Dave Hassinger (e)
Track listing: She Has Funny Cars; Somebody To Love (S); My Best Friend; Today; Comin’ Back To Me; 3/5 Of A Mile In 10 Seconds; D.C.B.A.-25; How Do You Feel; Embryonic Journey; White Rabbit (S); Plastic Fantastic Lover
Running time: 34.26
Current CD: Heritage 82876503512 adds: In The Morning; J.P.P. Mestep B. Blues; Go To Her; Come Back Baby; Somebody To Love (Mono Single Version); White Rabbit (Mono Single Version); D.C.B.A.-25 (Instrumental)
Further listening: After Bathing At Baxter’s (1967)
Further reading: Jefferson Airplane And The San Francisco Sound (Ralph J Gleason, 1969); Got A Revolution: The Turbulent Flight of Jefferson Airplane (Paul Kantner, 2003); www.jeffersonairplane.com
Download: HMV Digital; iTunes
Coffee-bar folkies energised by the British Invasion and The Byrds, Bob Dylan and Beat texts, free love and LSD, Jefferson Airplane were the mid-’60s San Francisco scene’s first fledglings. After headlining a series of druggy dances in autumn 1965, they secured a major deal with RCA and released a mild-mannered folk-rock album (Takes Off) in August 1966.
‘We were unhappy with the results,’ remembered Paul Kantner, so he invited The Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia along to the sessions for the follow-up, as a peacemaker between the production team and the band, whose working methods were increasingly rooted in improvisation. More crucial still was the arrival of singer Grace Slick, an ex-model who’d cut her teeth with Bay Area combo The Great Society. Slick brought a steely beauty, a scat singing style and, said Kantner, ‘an early punk attitude’; not to mention two breathtaking songs, Somebody To Love and White Rabbit, on which the album’s reputation is largely based. Also in tow was new drummer Spencer Dryden (replacing the errant Skip Spence), whose free-flowing style liberated the rhythm section. Remarkably, sessions for Pillow began just two weeks after Slick’s stage debut, yet her contribution was instantly felt. ‘A quantum leap’ is how Jorma Kaukonen describes the record, though a surfeit of love songs, vogueish reverb and acoustic instruments tends to belie the album’s acid reputation.
Writing in Esquire, Robert Christgau described it as ‘amplified Peter, Paul & Mary’, and ‘competent, original folk-rock’ at best; but to Garcia’s ears it sounded ‘as surrealistic as a pillow’. White Rabbit, with its ‘feed your head’ pay-off, may have been an obvious paean to acid, inspired by Ravel’s Bolero and Alice In Wonderland, but much of the album’s countercultural clout was understated. A wistful ‘Too many days are left unstoned’ (D.C.B.A.-25), sung in harmony over a gentle folk-rock backing, was more typical. White Rabbit aside, the moments of amplified abandon were reserved for each side’s opening cuts, the Diddleyesque She Has Funny Cars and 3/5 Of A Mile In 10 Seconds, with its memorable Balin rage, ‘Do away with people laughing at my hair’. The singer’s tear-stained vocals on Today and Comin’ Back To Me sat uneasily beside the group’s wayward image, but Surrealistic Pillow would have been far less enigmatic without him.
The Thirteenth Floor Elevators
Easter Everywhere
Alleged to get you high even when you’re straight.
Record label: International Artists
Produced: Lelan Rodgers
Recorded: Walt Andrus Studios, Houston; late spring 1967
Released: September 1967
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