Lots of new stuff this week, including some amazing South African 70’s psych CDS and a few new vinyl reissues of some cool 60s psych and garage bands.

Suzy Shaw
OWNER BOMP RECORDS

LABEL NEWS & BUZZ

BEECHWOOD MANIA continues, the reviews are rolling in for the new darlings of rock and roll, with Strange Things Are Happening declaring “Over twelve great songs, Beechwood pull together sounds from the last 50 years of Garage/Psych/Alt Rock with shades of Bolan boogie on ‘Bigot in My Bedroom’, primitive Stooges riffing on ‘Nero’ and the Country lament of ‘Our Love Was Worth the Heartache’, complementing their solid spine of ballsy Rock ‘n’ Roll.” – STRANGE THINGS ARE HAPPENING

SOUNDBLAB gives them an 8 out of 10 and says “In a way, the overall sound of the album is like a more melodic side of the garage bands found on the Lenny Kaye’s Nuggets compilation brought to more current times. READ FULL REVIEW HERE!


NEW ARRIVALS

CALLAHAN, EDDIE - False Ego (rare 1976 California private press gem w. heavy mini-LP style cover, Japanese woven inner sleeves, and a double-sided insert ) Ltd ed -Label:VAM MEXICO High quality reissue of very rare 1976 California private press gem, originally issued on the Ocean label. “First ever reissue, deluxe and legit, of this quite rare 1976 southern California private press gem. It's a strange, fantastical, and totally distinct album that will have you sucked in almost instantly. This one is extremely hard to pin down - think something like a loner powerpop rock opus, heavy on the psychedelic production values, studio dreamer vibes, and timeless hooks. The perfectly strange and beautiful cover art seals the deal. False Egos is mastered from the artist's well preserved and great sounding master tapes. CD version is packaged in an exact reproduction heavy mini-LP style cover, with Japanese woven inner sleeves, and a double-sided insert with a bunch of great vintage photos of Eddie rockin' the Marshall stacks at the False Ego sessions, and new notes from Eddie, his wife Donna-Davi, and album producer Robert Berry. Edition of 500 copies CD $14 SKU:15150

HAWK-African Day(1974 African psych gem) Label:FRESH South Africa’s Led Zeppelin! What do you get when you cross Cream with traditional African tribal vocals and the deep baritone of a master storyteller? Or, what would it sound like if Led Zeppelin swapped out tales of Gollum and the evil one in the depths of Mordor for yarns about brave hunters and village-attacking elephants? It would sound something like South Africa’s Hawk (also known as Jo’burg Hawk). In truth though, even trying to draw any such parallels falls flat for we have never before or since seen the like of Hawk. Their contemporaries were bands such as Freedom’s Children, The Otis Waygood Band and Abstract Truth, all legends in their own right, but no other band flew as close to the African sun and captured its glorious warmth as Hawk did. Arriving on the scene in the early 1970s, Hawk’s unique mixture of progressive, psychedelic rock was informed by a deep reverence for their African roots CD $15 SKU:20056

HAWK- She Too Can Cry (1974 African psych gem) Label:FRESH South Africa’s Led Zeppelin! What do you get when you cross Cream with traditional African tribal vocals and the deep baritone of a master storyteller? Or, what would it sound like if Led Zeppelin swapped out tales of Gollum and the evil one in the depths of Mordor for yarns about brave hunters and village-attacking elephants? It would sound something like South Africa’s Hawk (also known as Jo’burg Hawk). In truth though, even trying to draw any such parallels falls flat for we have never before or since seen the like of Hawk. Their contemporaries were bands such as Freedom’s Children, The Otis Waygood Band and Abstract Truth, all legends in their own right, but no other band flew as close to the African sun and captured its glorious warmth as Hawk did. Arriving on the scene in the early 1970s, Hawk’s unique mixture of progressive, psychedelic rock was informed by a deep reverence for their African roots CD $15 SKU:20057

MCCULLY WORKSHOP - Genesis (S. African 60's psych/garage/beat ) Label:FRESH Obviously influenced by the many British R&B band of the 60's (KINKS, YARDBIRDS, PRETTY THINGS, etc). Packed with psych guitars, brassy interludes a la early Chicago or Blood Sweat & Tears and funky tracks like Stone Man and Red Light City, Genesis is highly prized by collectors worldwide. CD $15 SKU:20060

MCCULLY WORKSHOP -Inc (S. African 60's psych/garage/beat ) Label:FRESH Obviously influenced by the many British R&B band of the 60's (KINKS, YARDBIRDS, PRETTY THINGS, etc). Packed with psych guitars, brassy interludes a la early Chicago or Blood Sweat & Tears and funky tracks like Stone Man and Red Light City, Genesis is highly prized by collectors worldwide. CD $15 SKU:20061

OTIS WAYGOOD BLUES BAND ST (1969 acid blues from South Africa)Label:FRESH Excellent album from one of South Africa's best kept secrets, this is slow acid blues with amazing fuzz guitars and gentle passages with flute playing to die for. Long extended jams on certain tracks get heavier and heavier. The first nine tracks on this disc are their complete Parlophone label album from 1970, including their classic takes on traditional tunes 'Watch 'n Chain' and 'I Can't Keep From Crying', plus their burning version of 'Fever'—not blues rock as one might think—it's bluesy no doubt, but with flute and saxophone giving a hippie jamming Sweetwater vibe to the proceedings; three bonus tracks are from their jazzier 1971 Parlophone album "Ten Claps and a Scream"; liner notes and photos have complete band history. They came from Rhodesia in 1969 and had people freaking out straight away at their high-octane live shows; by 1971 they were gone—and rock in Africa was never the same again! CD $15 SKU:11153

SEARCH PARTY--"The News Is You: The Sacred & Secular Music of Nick Freund (featuring the Search Party “Montgomery Chapel” (1968) and St. Pius X Seminary Choir - DOUBLE CD Label:LION Recorded at the San Francisco Theological Seminary’s own Montgomery Chapel, acid-folk-rock psychedelic gem Search Party “Montgomery Chapel” was the brainchild of (then Reverend) Nicholas Freund. Having left Wisconsin in the late 1960s to join a burgeoning West Coast religious sceneThe 28-page booklet is packed with information, thanks to Freund, who was gracious enough to delve into his memory, scrapbook, and photo albums to help us flesh out the portrait of one of the most potent—and perhaps one of the most unlikely—psychedelic groups to ever record an album.CD $12 SKU:20046

SUCK - Time to Suck (1970 South African hard rock) Label:FRESH The loudest, most controversial and obnoxious revolutionary fist-in-your-face rock album not to come out of Detroit! An album (Parlophone, 1970) that is all howling feedback guitars, explosive drumming, and muscular vocal antics‹and why not, as the album includes cover versions of songs by Black Sabbath, Grand Funk, plus a slow-burn 'Season of the Witch' that would spook Donovan, and the most schizoid '21st Century Schizoid Man' imaginable; the band rampaged through conservative South Africa for almost one year, then split; original album plus an EMI compilation track as a bonus; liner notes and photos tell the whole story of Suck. CD $15 SKU:20063

VIDRIOS QUEBRADOS- Los Fictions(great 60s S. American psych ) Label:LION Official cd reish of one of the best ever LPs to have emerged from the S. American underground during the 60'. 12 tracks of garage punk psych. Orig released in 67.Chilean import CD $10 SKU:20018

WAYGOOD , OTIS-Ten Light Claps And A Scream (1971 S AFrican freaky blues-rock ) SALE Label:FRESH Released in 1971 on EMI Parlophone, this is the third album by South Africa's once immensely-famous freaky blues-rock band, Otis Waygood. Produced by Julian Laxton of Freedom's Children under the direction of Clive Calder. T CD $15 SKU:10490

INDEX - Originals Vol. 1 1967-68(the holy grail of psych!) Label:LION All of the original compositions from the band's two self-released holy grails of psychedelia (the Black Album and the Red Album, from 1967-68) combined into one collection—all newly transferred from the original tapes! Most of you have no doubt heard of records that have been touted as “mind blowing”, “fuzz monsters”, or “lost/undiscovered classics”. The raves rarely turn out to be justified. That's certainly not the case with the music of Index—if anything, the raves underplay the essence of the band's music, which is seething with cavernous reverb, snaky guitar lines, and downer lyrics. It is fantastically minimalist, starkly atmospheric, and sprinkled with ferocious guitar work.In the mid 1960’s, Detroit Michigan was a thriving industrial city. But the great ethnic diversity in the inner city was a brewing powder keg of civil unrest. This, coupled with a disillusioned population struggling to make some sense of a questionable war in the rice paddies of Viet Nam, set an uneasy and troubling tempo for the future. Still, there were pockets of communities in the Detroit area where things were good and economic life was vibrant. The Grosse Pointes were such communities. It was on the outskirts of this political and racially tense era, in those affluent suburbs just outside Detroit, that Index was formed.The music of Index has been lauded by (and bootlegged by) music heads for decades, and with good reason: it is unexpected, atmospheric, and "home-made" in the best of all possible ways. The band has a druggie sound, with songs full of feedback and fuzzy guitars, hazy guitar riffs and loud pushy rhythms. And in there amongst the echoing canyons of sound you'll find some snotty post-punk attitude wrapped up in all that trippy velvet fuzz. It's a wonderful bleak sound, droning and murky and introspective—the atonal side of late 1960's rock that would leave the most lasting impression on those who would eventually become punk, post-punk and indie rock... you know, artists like Joy Division or the Fall or Felt to name three out of a thousand. Includes a 4-panel color insert, written by Index drummer Jim Valice, detailing the band's rock and roll adventures, replete with rare photos. LP $24 SKU:19862

PUSSY - Invasion (POST JERUSALEM 72/73) Label:LION iVnyl debut for post-Jerusalem material from 1972/73! Jerusalem is well known among 70s hard rock enthusiasts thanks to their stone-cold classic 1972 Deram label debut album. After that record was released, the band made the bold decision to not to continue with the same name—for them, Jerusalem was a one-off moment in time and could never be recreated. And so, three-fifths of Jerusalem (founding members Paul Dean and Ray Sparrow along with Bob Cooke), became Pussy. The new band were still managed and produced by Ian Gillan (Deep Purple). Pussy recorded and released one single on Deram and then went on to record tracks between 1972 and 1973 with Brian Goff taking over for Bob Cooke on guitar, for their debut album—which was never released. Pussy was a different beast from Jerusalem, despite Paul being the main writer for both bands. There seems to be a touch of Ziggy Stardust crunchy space glam in the mix—although Pussy kept the raw, no rules edge from Jerusalem which sets both bands apart from many others of the era. Gillan was far more proactive this time around; he played piano and percussion, and was responsible for many backing vocals on the songs. Pussy were a hard rocking band with no pretensions of being super musicians or technical geniuses. If it seemed like fun, it was worth a try, which explains a lot about their sound and direction. On stage anything could happen—no rules of course! They gigged all over the UK and Germany as a main and support act, very much in the same way as Jerusalem had done. Lion Productions and Rockadrome are proud to present here what was to have been the Pussy debut album, plus bonus tracks from the original Pussy single and a studio track recorded in 1972 with Jerusalem guitarist Bob Cooke. Features more than 40 minutes of never-before-on-vinyl material taken directly from the original master reels.
•Vinyl debut of early 70s UK hard rock recordings produced by Ian Gillan of Deep Purple•Features former members of legendary UK underground hard rock group Jerusalem, whose 1972 debut album reissue, also produced by Ian Gillan, has been a Lion/Rockadrome best seller!•Includes insert with photos, lyrics and liner notes by Pussy/Jerusalem bassist and songwriter Paul Dean•Limited first edition of only 500 copies! a link to an mp3 sampler, which has a little taste of every track on the record: LP $24 SKU:19948

SHIN JOONG & YUP JUNS -ST(1974 Korean psych! Label:LION Spring of 1974, in Seoul: this was the time and place that witnessed the birth of psychedelic power trio Shin Joong Hyun & Yup Juns. This version of this quintessence of psychedelia features Korean/English lyric translations, rare photos, re-mastered audio, and color insert with fabulous archival photos of Mr. Shin plus comprehensive liner notes by Kevin “Sipreano” Howes, all housed in a tip-on sleeve, with OBI and mylar outer bag. LP $18 SKU:19960

THIRD ESTATE, THE:- Years Before The Wine LP DINGED CORNER BARGAIN -Label:VOID 500 vinyl limited edition, pressed on black vinyl w/bonus red pre-Third Estate 45 included, as well as insert! Glossy color cover as well. From master tapes. Sure to sell out quickly. A masterpiece that has long been sought after by collectors. LP $12 SKU:5487

BACK IN STOCK

BEVIS FROND- Inner Marshland -Label:CHERRY RED 80s psych legends CD $10 SKU:18279

BLACKOUT - ST (groovy 60s garage)-Label:WORLD PSYCHEDELIA (Korea) At last a reissue of a great album that features some of the cheesiest organ sounds (meant in a good way) carved into wax in the 1960’s; groovy and bizarre Hammond runs are present and accounted for, residing happily with the smart songs, the fine guitar playing, and the gravelly vocals of the band’s singers (male and female), on the only album this Polish band ever saw released, just before they changed their name (to Breakout), and their sound (to progressive rock); they started as a beat band, albeit one addicted to the dark side of beat as demonstrated to them in person by Eric Burdon & the Animals; they developed their own weird sound, which was dubbed “Big Beat” by someone clever—a term that still exists in the former Eastern Bloc to describe this sort of offbeat (so to speak), wigged-out and intense home grown music; after some radio success, Blackout apparently recorded a slew of singles, some of which appear here as bonus tracks; twenty songs in all, mostly written by underground novelist and poet Bogdan Loebl, plus liner notes that include an interview with band-leader Tadeusz Nalepa as well as an overview of the recording industry in Poland in the 1960’s. It’s not every day you get historical background and interesting music in the same package! CD $12 SKU:18953

ELLIE POP- St (70s psych pop)- Label:World Psychedelia Definitely a pop/psychedelic classic-in-waiting, whose time has perhaps finally come; great songs right from the start, all oozing Beatles harmonics, with tracks such as 'Some Time Ago' and 'Caught In the Rain' especially thick with Beatles influence (thus explaining their appearance on the "Pepperisms" compliation CD $10 SKU:4132

HAWK- Live and Well (1974 African psych gem) - Label:FRESH Live and Well', Hawk's final album was released on vinyl in 1974 and is now officially released on CD for the first time. Another gem from South Africa's rich progressive 70s underground, at last available for all! Bonus cuts include a rare live recording. CD $15 SKU:12041

JARVIS STREET REVIEW- Mr Oil Man ( 70s acid psych) - Label:PACEMAKER Their lone Columbia label LP from 1971 leaves no one untouched by the band’s sheer avalanche of psychedelic heaviness, wasted acid leads and harrowing vocals. Every song is laced with a conviction born from the physical landscape they called home CD $12 SKU:14084

OVNIS, LOS- Hippies ( rare Mexican 60’s psych ) SAALE-Label:PEERLESS When we are talking about really rare and great albums from Mexico (f.i. El Tarro de Mostaza, the live album by Los Monjes, Kaleidoscope), Los Ovnis' 'Hippies' is perhaps the second rarest title, close on the heels of Kaleidoscope. 'Hippies' truly is a fantastic album and one of the crown jewels of Latin-American rock history CD $10 SKU:15122

THIRD ESTATE, THE-Years Before The Wine & AGONISTES - DBL Label:LION Third Estate’s “Years Before the Wine” is an ambitious and intricate psychedelic concept album from 1976 about the French Revolution (!) which blends warm Southern summer sounds (the band were from Baton Rouge, Louisiana) with baroque song structures. Never fear, the serious subject matter is no match for the strong songwriting and light, flowing music. Stunning vocals from Fae Ficklin on the title track are lovely, but even without them this album would richly deserve its status as a psychedelic classic. Stark, intimate production, with tasty fuzz guitar, backwards tape-loop soundscapes and beautiful treated acoustic guitar, puts one in mind of the Ithaca/Agincourt/Friends trilogy from England. The sound of exploration is evident everywhere, as the band spreads its wings, and glorious harmonies flow forth. The previously unreleased album recorded as Agonistes (1973) shows that the later recordings were no fluke—it can stand alone as one of the most beguiling folk/psych albums we’ve ever heard. Additional bonus tracks include singles and home demos. Budget-priced double disc package includes a 28-page color booklet, with histories of both groups by band co-leader Robert Everett, as well as lyrics for all the songs included herein. CD $15 SKU:19996

WAYGOOD, OTIS BLUES BAND- Simply Otis Waygood ( Rare South African psych blues ) -Label:FRESH FRUIT The band's second album that saw the blues based sound of their debut evolve into a more acid rock sound; the songs are longer and more improvisational (tracks like “In the Sun1 and The Messenger); includes six bonus tracks from their third and final album "Ten Light Claps and a Scream"‹these six plus the three bonus tracks on the 3S/T2 Otis Waygood CD completing the third album; so buy both discs and you have all three records for the price of two CDs. CD $15 SKU:20062