This is one of the best known French rock poets, meaning you'll need a good understanding of the language to really appreciate his albums. His style is vaguely similar to Pete Brown or Daevid Allen, distinguished by emotional verbal rantings. His first album was centered around a 20-minute French version (lyrics by Boris Bergman) of Arlo Guthrie's composition "Alice's Restaurant", supervised by Guthrie himself. This album has period charm to a certain degree, although Booz's style developed enormously on subsequent efforts. Le Jour où les Vaches... was much stronger musically with some illustrious orchestral arrangements by William Sheller. The overall feeling is frequently disturbing and unsettled. Emmanuel Booz is generally considered to be one of the leading French singer-poets of the seventies.
This rare hard rock album, very much in the mould of Leaf Hound, now changes hands for considerable sums. It's full of endless riffs, tortured blues vocals and drum and bass solos. Frankly, I found this all rather tedious!
the Crack in the Cosmic Egg: One of those obscure lost privately produced relics from the early-1970's, and not surprisingly so with such an odd name! Ejwuusl Wessahqqan (a character from a sci-fi novel apparently) existed on the Munich scene for several years before they plucked up the courage to release an album. By the mid-1970's however, there was little chance of a major label record contract, so they decided to produce the record themselves, which was a mixed blessing in that they could do whatever music they liked, but it also meant that the recording quality wasn't up to professional standards. The band make a point of the fact that they were friends of Amon Düül II, though really the Ejwuusl Wessahqqan sound relates much closer to Egg (or even more so Arzachel) and Xhol, with their blending of trippy psychedelic space-rock, fusion and classical musics. Elsewhere influences from Embryo can be felt, and because of the raw edge to some of it, there are also hints of industrial music akin to German Oak or early Kraftwerk. Ejwuusl Wessahqqan apparently have a vast archive of tapes, of which two tracks are included as bonus material on the CD reissue. They later became the more symphonic progressive styled band Koala-Bär.
This Irish band toured the States with Jimi Hendrix in 1967 and as a consequence he produced their album and played on it. They were managed by Chas Chandler. After the short-lived venture folded Graham had spells with Clancy and Help Yourself, Tolson joined The Edgar Broughton Band and a later Pretty Things line-up and McCullogh joined The Grease Band and was later in Wings; Chris Stewart was later with Spooky Tooth and Dave Lutton was in Ellis. Eire Apparent's album is now quite collectable - veering towards psychedelia with lots of phasing and effects; it is worth seeking out. Try the Sequel CD reissue.
Fuzz Acid & Flowers: Another of the Boston wave of rock groups, Earth Opera, certainly possessed talent. However, they arrived on the scene a little too late to make a sustained impact. The origins of the group lay in the rich Boston folk scene in the early sixties with the first experiences of Rowan and Grisman. A gifted songwriter, singer and, mandolin and guitar player, Peter Rowan began playing in the early '60s bluegrass and string band music with Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys and the Mother Bay State Entertainers. A master of mandolin, David Grisman had similar roots and played with Siegel, Grisman, Rose and Lewinger. Some recordings of these early Rowan and Grisman bands can be found on The String Band Project (Elektra EKS-7292) 1965. Earth Opera was formed at the end of 1967 by Rowan and Grisman and their first album was housed in a strange gatefold sleeve with pictures probably taken inside an Indian temple. All the songs were credited to Rowan (Time And Again being cowritten with Grisman) and the use of vibes, harpsichord or mandocello help creating a gloomy atmosphere on songs like Death By Fire or As It Is Before. The following year The Great American Eagle Tragedy pursued a similar direction. Bill Halverson had left but the four remaining members were helped by various guests, including Velvet Underground's John Cale on viola, Jim Kweskin Jug Band's Bill Keith and Jefferson Airplane's friend Jack Bonus. Once again the sleeve was notable, this time with a collage combining a skull with the American Eagle symbol. Commercially unsuccessful, Earth Opera broke up in 1969. Grisman and Rowan went to California and joined two bluegrass outfits: Muleskinner with Clarence White of the Byrds and Old And In The Way with Jerry Garcia (Grisman also played on The Grateful Dead'sAmerican Beauty).
Here is an excellent example of the US Progressive rock scene of the Seventies: having both technique and excellence, imagination & talent. They seemed to be influenced by a variety of styles. Their sound was a little folky at times, poppy at others, even a little jazzy at times, loosely in the shadow of KANSAS, YES, GENESIS, early KING CRIMSON and others, with lots of vocals everywhere.
The eponymous album was recorded in 1975, "Ardour" the following year, while "Relics" is a compilation of tracks originally destined for the band's third album. The album "Ardour" is excellent. Cool cover too.
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