Strange Pleasures Further Sounds of the Decca Underground

This 3-CD compilation is almost a lost treasure chest. From the Cherry Red Esoteric label and Prog chief and fan, Mark Powell, he decided it was time to do a sequel to the 2003 tribute to the DECCA label on Legend of a Mind The Underground Anthology. Strange Pleasures is almost another psychedelic trip down memory lane where Legend left off with a mystery on what is behind the other door of the experimental scenery. These 49 tracks on the box set stays in focus around the underground scene in London from various Psychedelic bands that hit the big time in the Marquee or were too obscure for the BBC. Tracks like the darker beauty of Al Stewart's Turn into Earth, Genesis earlier take of their homage of the psychedelic Bee Gees with In the Beginning, and the classical symphonic orchestra prog masterpiece Twilight Time by the Moody Blues in 1967. When you listen to these gems, you began to see that the DECCA/DERAM label were on a train mission to see what was going on in the London scenery during that chronological period in 1967 to 1975. The Accent's proto garage rock of psychedelia music with Red Sky at Night and Bill Fay's (admired by Wilco) folk ballads by the mellotron on Some Good Advice and Garden Song. The First CD ends as 1969 comes to an end of the flower generation with Egg's jazzy fusion of I will be absorbed and Alvin Lee's Ten Years of the hard rockin' pounding sounds of Bad Scene. As the second CD begains, you could tell its like a time machine train with the chugging sounds of Caravan's If I Could Do It Again, I'd Do It All Over You, Denny Gerrard's medieval taste of prog acoustics on Atmosphere, and T2's own take of early Pink Floyd with JLT. This compilation is one of the best and the songs from various bands are a clean cut in the golden-era before the Prog scene started to dwindle at the end of '75 when Punk and Disco came into the scene. As the final third CD begans to conclude Strange Pleasures, it starts with one of the earliest songs from one of British Heavy Metal heroes of the early '70s that was the answer to Led Zeppelin, Thin Lizzy's take of the wah-wah blues rocker Things Ain't Working Out Down the Farm, Ten Years After hard rockin' I'm Coming On while Gong's guitarist Steve Hillage's canterbury supergroup Khan took the epics into the solar system with the 9-minute Space Shanty as Steve Hillage and Egg's Dave Stewart take the virtuoso landscape into a spaceship ride while the avant-garde scene goes strangely further with an unknown band that I'm beginning to dig from the DECCA label called Zakarrias and their acoustic rocker Cosmic Bride. Mark Powell keeps the music of the Progressive Rock genre into a ray of light as Bill Fay comes back into the framework with the darker ballad of jail sentences of trail by error on Time of the Last Persecution. All in all, this is one of the best Prog compilations I've enjoyed listening to and you will also when you buy this to get a real kick out of.

The post aftermath of Hurricane Ike. Still Survivng and Never giving up!

To all Prog and Prog Metal fans who read this,

I Just want to let you know that I'm alright. My family are okay also due to Hurricane Ike. The house is fine and it didn't get hit. We (the family and I) were very lucky not to get hit. We had no Power for 13 days in a gruesome hot 84 degree fahrenheit inside my house. But finally got power back yesterday afternoon.

We lost power on Fri Sept. 12 and had to use portable TVs and a small Sports Radio that my Dad had about 19 years ago. It still works to this day. And watched the debris and broken trees and traffic signals that lost power also. Not to forget the Curfew which was a sticky situation. Plus the destruction of Galveston, Texas. For me, I've been there a couple of times when I was a kid.

My parents, my sister, and I would go there to go to the beach, look at the sites, Moody Gardens and the Grand Opera House. Now, when I watched the destruction of Galveston, it almost looked like a Nuclear Holocaust. I don't want to scare anybody, but the destruction looks like a War Zone including Bonar Peninsula. My thoughts and prayers and concerns also are with the citizens of Galveston and hope to rise and start again including Kemah, Texas.

When the hurricane passed, it was almost like 'What the hell's going on?!' and 'When are we getting power back?!' it almost a tension situation, but like I said it will take a while to get this sorted out. We didn't get any damages from Hurricane Rita four years ago, but now with Hurricane Ike's destruction to Galveston, I just hope everyone will rebuild and start a new beginning.

My house in Houston is fine, just a couple of small shingles that came off the roof. No Water Damages to the house, it was REALLY hot inside the house, but now we have power back on Sept. 23. I'm still truckin'. Don't worry, I will get back on track to write reviews for Prog albums and hopefully get the writing machine going.

For now, take care of yourself and each other,

Zack

Aphrodite's Child - 666

While the concept albums was ruling the prog genre at the beginning of the 1970s, the globe was turning around and around as it lands in the outskirts of Greece that has one prog band that took the concept album into the layers of hell! That band of course is Aphrodite's Child. Formed in 1967, they started out as a greek psychedelic love-song band. They had some amazing songs like; It's Five O'Clock, End of the World, Let Me Love, Let Me Live, Spring, Summer Winter and Fall, and Rain and Tears. But all of that would change when Vangelis took the concept album into the obscure territory with this double concept album based on the Apocalpyse of St. John. 666 is an amazing masterpiece filled with heavy rocking guitar sounds from Silver Kouoluris, bizarre greek folk tales, ambient and atmospheric music into flameish annihilation!

The key tracks on 666 are the Pete Townshend guitar sounds with Babylon as Vangelis bangs the bass drums while Demis Roussos sings about the fallen empire of Babylon the great, The 5-minute epic heavy metal track on The Four Horsemen as Silver takes on the guitar solo into obscurity while Irene Papas makes her erotic X-rated porn sounds in the avant-garde climax of Infinity. And the space sounds of Aegean Sea and The Waking Beast allows the listener to go deep into pure heavy moods. And the climax of all epics, the 19-minute experiemental strange twist of All the Seats Were Occupied as the battle between good and evil fight for the final showdown with Heaven & Hell to duel it out.

Sadly, Aphrodite's Child's 666 was their final album in 1972. They called it quits as Vangelis enjoyed a mainstream success with film scores such as Chariots of Fire, the Sci-Fi cult classic Blade Runner, and the dreaded Oliver Stone pretentious tale of Alexander while Demis Roussos went a little more pop sound with We Shall Dance and From Soveniurs to Soveniurs by cross-dressing and singing like a greek version of Pavarotti. Concept album based on the apocalypse of hell? Pure fucking insanity right here!

Ash Ra Tempel - Ash Ra Tempel

Germany's answer to Pink Floyd and Hawkwind. There is one band to take these two prog bros. into the outer limits and in the black hole with their Freak Out sinister epics that will make you scream for mercy. Krautrock's space cadet trio Ash Ra Tempel. Released on the Ohr Label in 1971, Ash Ra Tempel's self-titled debut album is the ultimate solar system trip. Manuel Gottsching on Guitar, Klaus Schulze who left Tangerine Dream after their first album Electronic Meditation on Drums to join with Manuel in 1970, and Hartmut Enke on Bass Guitar were on a cosmic roller-coaster ride that was beyond the atmospheric music with Heavy Metal jam sessions, experimental sounds similar to TD's early days in the late '60s. No wonder Julian Cope dug this band so much!

The opening 19-minute stoner rock track Amboss, starts off as a egyptian ambient guitar sound from Gottsching as it sets the mood for this explosive hard rockin' sound that is set towards the Monolith. The next 3-minutes featuring Klaus and Harmut, are following Manuel into a maximum space metal adventure into hell and beyond as you turn this motherfucker up LOUD on your iPod. Traummaschine (Dream Machine) a space rock beyond space music that is similar to TD's Journey through an Electric Brain, this reminds me of 2001: A Space Odyssey on this last number. They are on a sonic new age sound with Planet sounds on the Guitar and female vocalists setting the scenery by harmonizing the voices in an isolated scenery in a darken room. Klaus is doing an Indian tribe on the percussion instruments while they travel the Universe for the last 13-minutes in a raving light speed ride into Planet Tempel. Space Metal and Krautrock going together in the Milky Way? They never dissapoint!

Second Hand - Reality

The London Scene in the late '60s from the Underground-era was an amazing time period for bands such as Pink Floyd, Family, Traffic, and The Soft Machine. But there was one band that took the Psychedelic and Prog-era into a full proto-metal version of Procol Harum. That band was Second Hand. Formed in 1965, they were known as The Next Collection until they were signed by Polydor Records and changed their name to Second Hand and released their debut album in 1968 called Reality. This is humor, political, post-apocalyptic, and almost a Fairy tale quality of their first album.

Unlike their musical influences from The Creation, Small Faces, and The Who, Second Hand were a combination of The Action meets The Who meets Procol Harum with their first album. The opening track, A Fairy Tale starts off as a mellotronic homage to The Who's 1965 classic I Can't Explain and starts off into a childhood wonder about a mother telling her son a story before bedtime while Rhubarb! is a rumbling hard rock political statement into hell. The homage of the circus and '30s big band jazz music with the one and only Denis James the Clown. Steam Tugs is a bluesy mellotron number that shows that you can have a good time at a house party with the sexual soulness inside to be covered with the blanket of steam tugs and looking back the childhood-era of the 1950s with the Traffic/Dave Mason pop sound of Good Old '59 (We Are Slowly Getting Older).

The World Will End Yesterday is another proto-metal number set into a ballad that takes place in a post-apocalyptic world in a fictitious planet; A tribute to Denis James again with him being a DJ in a ballad; An emotional garage classic psychedelia music to Mainliner is almost bizarre and tiwsted that would make the band almost take an acid trip. The 8-minute piece Reality becomes more symphonic prog in a Deep Purple way and the finale of The Bath Song is another rock opera that is mysterious of the killing of an innocent vicitim while taking a Bath. Second Hand would release two more albums before calling it a day in 1971. The two members from Second Hand Kieran O'Connor and Ken Elliot would later form the Sci-Fi band Seventh Wave in 1974. An X-ray cover of a skeletal hand at a London Hospital that is twisted and weird? Who would have thought about that!

Rare Bird - As Your Mind Flies By

While most of the Prog bands were following in the footsteps of the Beatles Sgt. Pepper, there was one band that took the underground scene in London into the world of Religion. That band was Rare Bird. The music wasn't just like Yes and Rick Wakeman's bombastic tradition of King Arthur on ice and gigantic baloon lobsters filling up the stage, it was more of a beauty and the Canterbury sound material-like sound. The group was founded in 1969 with Mark ashton on drums, the soulful voice of bassist Steve Gould, and two keyboardist that would get Wakeman wish that he was in this band with Graham Field and David Kaffinetti to get that dark image and almost medieval rock. While their first debut self-titled album is a classic, their second album, As Your Mind Flies By is another classic with heavy organs and an ultimate sonic sound.

The opening track What You Want To Know, a sexual encounter with a love one that becomes an organic ballad with a 10 feet high man that tells the girl about he feels about her in a Otis Redding piece becoming more of a Genesis tune. Hammerhead is a sinister taste of the bibilcal gods duking it out in the battlefield. The classical music harpischord love-soung quintet of Down on the Floor becomes a baroque tradition in the 1600's in jolly old england. The wedding music of Prog in I'm Thinking is a special treat while it goes into a bluesy fast speeding tradition and then becomes a gospel rockin' sound about the good years flashing back before getting married and the 19-minute epic Flight, gets a real rollercoaster ride of Prog epics.

Rare Bird would have various members including Nic Potter of VDGG fame. They released three more albums before calling it a day in 1975. Even though they wehre ahead of their time, They are the best Prog Rockers that would defintely get a real kick out of.

Amon Duul II - Tanz Der Lemminge

While the Krautrock scene was changing the waves in the early '70s with Ash Ra Tempel, NEU!, Can, Cluster, and the Cosmic Jokers, there was a band that had a combination of the Grateful Dead meets Pink Floyd. Amon Duul II were one of the bands that took the Krautrock genre on the bandwagon with its musical genres of avant-garde experiementations and atmospheric sounds. The group was founded back in the psychedelic-era of the late '60s after the fall of Amon Duul. They released their debut album Phallus Dei (God's Penis) a classic krautrock album along with Yeti in 1970 which according to MOJO's disc of the day "Hippy-punk communards from Munich chase drug refracted pagan gnosis!" and in 1971, Tanz Der Lemminge (Dance of the Lemmings)

A science-fiction star trekish experimental album with the space music taking you to a different world of weird insanity. The first three tracks are 15 to 19-minute suites that takes the listener inside the monolith with bizarre titles such as Restlesss Skylight-Transistor Child, Syntelman's March of the Roaring Seventies, and the foundation club to Norma Jean among the cult with the Marilyn Monroe - Memorial Church.

While the suites are like something out of Stanley Kubrick's 1968 stoner classic 2001: A Space Odyssey, the last three shorter tracks take a steeping breath of psycedelia. Chewing Gun Telegram has a reminiscent of a hard rockin sound of the Grateful Dead while Stumbling over Melted Moonlight is a prequel to their kraut punk classic Between the Eyes with its fuzztone bass sound and the gritty technique. Toxicological Whispering becomes a jamb band session into the mind of Jefferson Airplance. Weird, bizarre, and something you would defintiely get stoned over, Amon Duul II doesn't pull any punches.