T. Swift & the Electric Bag: Are You Experienced (LP) 1968

T. Swift & the Electric Bag

Are You Experienced

Custom 1115
1968

Recommended ****

At its best, this album is a second-rate version of Booker T. and the MGs, acid rock but a bit out of time, still showing the garage and freak-out sounds of the mid ’60s.  In other words, this is great stuff.

 

If you can make it past the duds, there’s plenty to enjoy.  “Free Form in 6” is a fairly classic acid-rock instrumental, as is the cover of “The Letter” (Box Tops), this wordless version cleverly called “A Jet.”

Another worthwhile exploitative outing from the City of Angles.

— Winch (author of Kalamazoo: Growing Up Sideways in the 1970s and the two-part novel Junk Like That.)
    

http://www.eight-track.com

The Scramblers: Cycle Psychos (Album) 1963

The Scramblers

Cycle Psychos

Crown CST 384
1963
Good Shit *****

 

With the wave of surf music cresting, the Southern California kids jumped in their hot rods and revved off to explore other sports (Duane Eddy offering a set of waterski songs and in Colorado the Astronauts were downhill skiing), most of the California kids who stuck around for the party focusing on hot-rod rock.  And of course we had to have cycle rock which motored along very much in the same style.

 

This is perhaps the only album dedicated completely to this silly genre, half of the album featuring silly vocals, the other half coming out of the surf instrumental, here with motorcycle sound effects.

 

This was complete nonsense of course. what rock and roll is all about, what the Beatles killed with their watered-down version of American R&B.  Apparently, this is another Jerry Cole outing, simple as a two-stroke, one of the greatest album to ever come out of California.

— Winch (author of Kalamazoo: Growing Up Sideways in the 1970s and the two-part novel Junk Like That)

http://www.eight-track.com

http://www.amazon.com/Winch/e/B00MGBTVLU/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1419746463&sr=8-1