So Harry decided taking on reissuing out of print punk from the 70's just wasn't enough and started up this PRE-punk reissue label Might Mouth Music...I get it, there's all kinds of gaps in music history that have been overlooked by oldies radio and Casey Kasem, or locked away in collectors humidity controlled vaults. I've seen the photo's on Termbo...the barns or garages outfitted with walls of glass cases of records and carefully hung framed punk posters. I'm definitely glad you guys exist...but can I hear the damn record already? Is it that great? So here comes Mighty Mouth Music to actually put this single in your hands...for SIX BUCKS! This one is from The Psychopaths from Boston and the year was 1967...it's impossible to even imagine what the musical landscape was like back then, but needless to say this holds up nicely, and is super weirdo creepy psych...this stuff has a long history people...starting pretty much with this killer single.
A-Side's "Till the Stroke of Dawn" features David Arvedon's signature high... almost falsetto vocal, I get it now, these guys are the psych-opaths. Can you imagine what it ws like to have set up all these effects and really spent the time to capture them, and sounding like nothing before it? Really being worried that people might not know what to do with this weirdo combination. The cool slow tremolo on electric, the tight snare beat coming in right before the high echo vocal. This beat seems to slowly be creeping up faster and faster, it sounds like this narator is scaring 'his love'. He wrote her a letter but he's coming for her, a little obsessed maybe. Crisp 13th floor elevators style, none of the esoteric jamming, succinct and to the point. One of thsoe tracks that would have been in a Vietnam war movie when they were smoking pot. Super groovy, and guess what? This is the real deal.
B-Side's "See the girl" sounds just so good, completely clean and understated, you have to love this drum tone, the snap of the tom fill running straight into the snare, plonking out this steady beat waiting for the brief moments to get this thing rocking. This one is more of a ballad, like they're trying to disguise this great understated melody, running a little jagged, pre new wave of course and revolutionary but then having to dive into this sappy lovesong about this lost love. Still would have had to be fairly mindblowing around this time. You want to talk about going back? I don't even think my parents were married yet. It's inspiring to know this was going on, and so clean sounding on this single, like those criterion reissues, so cleaned up when you hear a pristine copy pressed by Mighty Mouth you can hear exactly how revolutionary it was without all the scratches and pops....jsut like the day your dad came home from the record shop with a new 45 he bought instead of lunch. I would have listened to the shit out of this thing.
Get it from Mighty Mouth Records, no art, just plain paper sleeve like the old days...lots more coming soon I'm sure. Check out the A-Side on the tubes of you.
Harry-- it's Dave The Psychopath Arvedon, and my new CD is about to be pressed as we speak. I also plan on doing another CD of the songs I wrote in the early 60's.
ReplyDeleteYour comment on 'Till The Stroke of Dawn' about me being a little obsessed. Not a little obsessed-- a lot obsessed, and add this to the fact that I am Count Dracula!
I BELIEVE YOU about being a lot obsessed. You add an entirely new dimension to the idea of weird. I would not want to meet YOU in a dark alley. You are scary as hell.
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