Bubble Puppy : Hot Smoke & Sassafras

Heh. Bubble Puppy. Bubble Puppy hails from the great state of Texas, home to such rock legends as ZZ Top and The 13th Floor Elevators. In 1969 they committed "Hot Smoke & Sassafras" to vinyl and managed to score a Top 20 pop hit with it. They followed it up with an album that failed to go anywhere and promptly folded.

But, aside from the obvious appeal of the name of both band and song, the tune itself is pretty great. It lands pretty squarely in the hard psychedelic rock genre, somewhere between Yes and Jimi Hendrix. Or maybe Cream. There are nice hard blues-rock riffs with slightly aggressive rhythm change-ups, copious use of stereo panning and sweet sweet vocal harmonies.  There's even a nice little rocking breakdown in the middle and the lyrics are gloriously dopey. 

I first learned of Bubble Puppy while reading the rock bible, Rock and the Pop Narcotic, by Joe Carducci.  In it, Joe tries to breakdown what makes rock rock and why that is different than pop.  I once got into a debate over whether Van Morrison was "classic rock". If you know the answer (and it's not "yes"*) or consider yourself a true die-hard rock music fan, you must read this book.

You can find "Hot Smoke & Sassafras" on Bubble Puppy's 1969 release, A Gathering of Promises. It really is a great little song and it's sad it hasn't seen more play.

* This fellow was trying to tell me that "Brown-Eyed Girl" was classic rock.  Van Morrison is classic and has some amazing tunes, but he doesn't rock, pretty much ever, unless you are talking about his stint with the awesome Them, in which case, he did fucking rock. 

[You can listen to Bubble Puppy's "Hot Smoke & Sassafras" by navigating to the post "Song095" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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John Martyn : I'd Rather Be the Devil (Live)

This is another psychedelic folk number, like Jake Holmes, Tim Buckley or American Gypsy.  John Martyn was a British singer who was a pioneer in the folk-rock and blues-rock traditions developing across the pond in the late 60's.  Apparently he was pretty good friends with Nick Drake, another psychedelic folker who you might see pop up in these pages in the next year.

John began working with a jazz bassist for this album, which might explain it's general funkiness and meandering song structures.  They vary in energy from the nice light straight-up folk of "May You Never" to the harder blues edge of Skip James' "I'd Rather Be the Devil" which is the star of the album.  I've selected the live version because it's a little edgier than the album version, but they're both excellent.

The song kicks of with some acoustic guitar played through an echo pedal, which sounds distinctly similar to "On the Run" by Pink Floyd.  Then the bongos kick in and the song launches itself, buoyed by near constant tom work.  It lurches forward from verse to verse, full of tension that rarely, if ever, dissipates at all through the song.  You do get the feeling that the devil is really riding out after him.  John has a unique way of singing, a slurry, sibilant, almost falsetto (see: Nick Drake), that further pushes the song into psychedelic territory.

You can find this live version of "I'd Rather Be the Devil" on the re-release of his seminal 1973 release, Solid Air.  It's a fantastic album, great listening for a dark, rainy night.

[You can listen to John Martyn's "I'd Rather Be the Devil (Live)" by navigating to the post "Song077" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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American Gypsy : Golden Ring

This one's hard to classify. There are flutes and a string section, and the whole thing has a close, dark feel to it, but there's also some upbeat funk and scatting going on. I think it falls somewhere between psychedelia and soft rock; between Santana and America. It's tough to say.

Regardless of where you try and pigeonhole it though, it's a great tune. There's not much out there about American Gypsy on the interwebs, so I can't give much background, except to say this is off their third album.

The songs starts off with a bit of psychedelia, some acoustic guitar, light organ, light echo on the vocals, all vaguely trippy. There's something about the way they process the vocals on this track that makes them sound very close-up, almost like the singer is in your head, whispering in your ear. Then, about 90 seconds into it, they funk it up, bringing up the speed, adding wah-wah guitar, more strings and a bebopping scat solo. Then they slow it down and do it all again. It trips and grooves, it's alternately spooky and funky, which doesn't seem like it would work, but they really make it go.

You can find "Golden Ring" on American Gypsy's self-titled 1975 release. But I found it on this most excellent compilation, As We Travel: Folk Funk Flavours & Ambient Soul. It's full of 70s psychedelic funk like this. A superb compilation; highly recommended

[#41]

Tim Buckley : Monterey

I'm not sure what Tim Buckley was thinking. After establishing a somewhat decent career as a folk singer, he got fascinated with avant garde music, and started weaving ideas he heard from composers like Iannis Xenakis and free-jazz musicians like Ornette Coleman into his songs. He also began using the, uh... 'full range' of his voice. I guess that means he shrieks and he moans.

I know I sound like I'm knocking it a little, but both Starsailor and Lorca are two of my favorite albums. Like I explained in the article about the Mae Shi, I really dig the deconstruction of rock that manages to keep the rock, and that's what's happening here. There's a repeated riff that the band jams on over and over while Tim gasps and howls over the top of it.

The lyrics read like a hippy-dippy version of a murder ballad. Something bad went down, and the singer was involved somehow, but it's not particularly clear. Still, there's an urgency conveyed by the band and Tim's growling vocals that really sells the song to me.

It may not be your cup of tea, but that's okay, because 1970's Starsailor isn't available on CD anyway. Well, you can get a used copy for like 50 bucks. But you can buy the actual MP3s all legal and stuff, direct from Amazon for 6 bucks. Maybe from iTunes too, I have no idea.

[You can listen to Tim Buckley's "Monterey" by navigating to the post "Song033" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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Can : Halleluhwah

Most folks, when they think of the prototypical German music, they imagine Kraftwerk, pristine, precise and mechanical, with neither a hair or a note out of place. But for me, the kings of the German rock scene are Can. They are the anti-Kraftwerk. They are dirty and funky, they improvise, they experiment, they rock.
Can started out in '68 as a bunch of German musicians, rooted in avantgarde classical and jazz music, and an African-American poet & singer named Malcolm Mooney. Malcolm only made it about an album and a half before he suffered a nervous breakdown and had to quit the band. After he left, they drafted Damo Suzuki, a wandering Japanese busker, who stayed with them through the rest of the second album and proceeded to record three seminal albums with the band. Damo's vocals are... unique. Sometimes he sings in English (I'm pretty sure) and sometimes in Japanese (I think). And sometimes I think he just makes shit up. But it doesn't matter, because, like the improvisation from the rest of the band, it always fits the song exactly right.

Can was equally inspired by the avantgarde and experimental movements sweeping through Europe in the 60's, by the progressive rock movement, also sweeping the continent in the 60's, and by funk, which might have made it to the continent, but not so you could really tell. If you ask me who my favorite drummers are, number one is John Bonham and number two would be Jaki Liebezeit. He could bring the funk like nobody's business. He had this amazing way of skittering across the drum set, performing what sometimes amounts to one giant drum solo, while keeping a funk groove going non-stop. He was as funky as Clyde Stubblefield or Zigaboo Modeliste and he was German.

Tago Mago was Can's first full outing with Damo and it has the rawness of the first album, but pulled in jazzier direction with more open structures. To me, "Halleluhwah" (not Hallelujah mind you) epitomizes all that is Can. It's raw, open and funky. On top of the funk, there's guitar riffage, electronic noodling, a violin solo and whatever else the boys can think to bring to the table. And of course, there's Damo's near-brilliant vocals. I'm not exactly sure what he's saying, something about his brother, I'm pretty sure, but he means it. And it's long; it clocks in at over 18 minutes of awesome and never dulls. And did I mention it's funky? Jaki and Holger Czukay rock that rhythm hard for the entire song. A brilliant song off a brilliant album from a brilliant band.

My personal mp3 of this song is over 26mb, so I had to scale it back to mono (you don't lose much) and resample it to 56kbps, which is the equivalent of 112kbps stereo. That still puts it at nearly 8mb, but I listened to it and I think it sounds fine. So, enjoy this truly epic piece. As I mentioned before you can find it on their 1971 release, Tago Mago. Although if you are just starting out with Can, I'd probably recommend Ege Bamyasi as a better LP to start with, then work forward and backward from there.

[You can listen to Can's "Halleluhwah" by navigating to the post "Song012" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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Jake Holmes : Dazed and Confused

This one might sound a little familiar. It's a killer tune that Jake Holmes lays down; a dark psychedelic folk jam with a middle-eastern vibe about a woman who won't do right. It's got a mean descending bass riff and there's a fantastic breakdown in the middle where he taps a voodoo rhythm out on the guitar body. The whole thing culminates in a frenzy of strumming that stops so dead, you'd think they accidentally pulled the plug on the four-track.

Well, maybe they did. I wasn't there.

But, aside from being an amazing song in its own right, the song's got a history (which you've already realized, if you're listening to it). Yes, Jake came first and Jimmy came second. It's another in the long line of tunes that, er... shall we say "inspired" Led Zeppelin.

This one's available on his self-aggrandizing album "The Above Ground Sound of Jake Holmes", which I haven't heard, and also on the nifty compilation "The Roots of Led Zeppelin".

[You can listen to Jake Holmes' "Dazed and Confused" by navigating to the post "Song011" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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Bongwater : Nick Cave Dolls

"They call them Bongwater, that's the name of it? I never heard of that, I never heard of a band with that name."

Ahhhh, Bongwater. The artsy duo consisted of performance artist Ann Magnuson and weird-record-impresario Kramer, who founded Shimmy-Disc records which hosted such classic acts as Ruins, King Missile, Boredoms, Daniel Johnston, Naked City and the astoundingly-named When People Were Shorter and Lived Near the Water. He was King of the Weird in the '90s and produced some of the most mind-bending music around.

Bongwater is notorious for full-on kaleidoscopic freak-show psychedelia, and this is a prime example. The piece starts out with a pastiche of found samples, including a stuttering pontification on Bongwater as a band name and someone abusing a telephone. After a minute and a half of psychotropic randomness, the actual song kicks in. The tune itself is a journey through classic psychedelic territory, with hazy guitars and a martial snare pattern laying down the backdrop for Ann's spoken word performance. Somehow she manages to be both sexy and bizarre, tripping her way through double entendres and references to funnel clouds, chocolate cake, lingerie pose-a-thons, balding actors, Dorothy Stratten, and of course, Nick Cave dolls. I want one.

This tune is a little on the adult-oriented side, with some salty language and vaguely risque situations. I mean, the album is called The Power of Pussy.

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Pink Floyd : Paint Box

The goal for Topeka is to expose the reader to new music. Not new in the sense of "just came out last week", but new in the sense of "Hey, you may not have ever heard this before." In order to do this, I'm certainly going to pull some "just came out last week" stuff that I like, but I'm also going back into the creates to explore stuff that maybe you heard but forgot. I especially like the idea of pulling non-single album tracks or B sides from more popular groups, hopefully to shake up your preconceived ideas about what they represent.

Also, the music should just be really good. Or, at least interesting.


To that end, here is the first entry. It's a well-known band, but a lesser-known song. I think. I wasn't really around at the time. The song is Paint Box, by Pink Floyd, the flipside to Apples and Oranges (which is also a great song).

This one sounds a bit like a Syd Barrett penned song, but it turns out it was written by Richard Wright. It's a simple enough little ditty, kind of melancholy riff on the mundane perils of going out on the town with your mates. But it's a bit hazy. There's forgetting and confusion. Someone's calling him on the phone, but she's unnamed. He's late, she's mad, and he ... trips out.

This is all backed by a hazy, psychedelic swirl of production. Not so thick that it becomes a parody (like the Lemon Pipers) but just enough to contribute to the whole sense of oddness, disjointedness and anxiety that pervades the track.

The whole song feels like it really captures the befuddled stupor, the fog of a high one might find oneself in after a long night of imbibing alcohol and ingesting narcotics.

This version came off the awesome Early Singles compilation from 1992.

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