Grateful Dead’s history a Society affair

Roll over Frederick Douglass and tell Abe Lincoln the news: the Grateful Dead have crashed Manhattan’s local history museum.

Dead heads are flocking to Central Park West this weekend as “Grateful Dead: Now Playing at the New-York Historical Society” debuts.

The exhibit comes almost exclusively from the Grateful Dead archives at the University of California Santa Cruz and is its first major showing. So what’s the Dead memorabilia doing way over there in Manhattan?

The historical society has your answer in one incredibly long sentence: “(The Dead) played in and around New York City on a regular basis, from early dates at Greenwich Village coffeehouses, impromptu performances in Central Park and at Columbia University during the 1968 Student Strike; to concerts at midsized venues, including the Fillmore East, the Academy of Music and the 46th Street Rock Palace in Brooklyn during the 1970s; and, ultimately, to performances at larger halls and stadiums such as Radio City Music Hall, Madison Square Garden and Giants Stadium.

“The Grateful Dead’s time in New York will be viewed in the context of cultural traditions and events unique to New York, but also as yet another stop on a long, strange touring trip that included dates in New York, San Francisco, and everywhere in between,” the museum explained.

Another reason: the Dead archive materials remain mostly warehoused in Santa Cruz, as the university prepares primo exhibition space as a permanent home.

Goodies on display include the band’s famed psychedelic concert posters, trippy set lists, album art such as the “American Beauty” cover, giant marionettes and other stage props, banners and crazy funky fan mail. Band documents include evidence of their early decisions to allow free taping by fans.

For those who want take-home, the gift shop is brimming with fun psychedelic stuff.

The Los Angeles Times tracked the Grateful Dead exhibit’s history, which starts improbably with Henry Kissinger, who gave a speech at the museum urging historians to look at the ’60s in order to understand the U.S. A former museum board member copped to being a Dead head and lobbied for a band exhibition as a follow-up on Kissinger’s advice.

The exhibition runs through July 4 — fittingly, as it’s a touchstone holiday for the band and its Uncle Sam.

Abbey Rd. for sale: home to Beatles, Floyd

Abbey Road, the London recording studio where the Beatles and Pink Floyd crafted their classic psychedelic albums, reportedly has gone on the block.

EMI built the studio in 1929 and has owned and operated it since. Numerous sources told the Financial Times that the famed studio was being sold to help lower the debt from the 2007 leveraged buyout of EMI.

Update: EMI denied the FT report a week later: “We believe that Abbey Road should remain in EMI’s ownership,” the company said. EMI said it was in talks with third-parties about revitalizing the studio.

The Beatles, an EMI act, made almost all of their recordings there, including the psychedelic-era touchstones “Strawberry Fields Forever,” “Revolver,” “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” “Magical Mystery Tour,” “The White Album,” “Yellow Submarine” and “Abbey Road.”

Pink Floyd — Abbey Road’s other “house band” — tripped out in the venerable studios with “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn,” “A Saucerful of Secrets,” “Ummagumma,” “Atom Heart Mother” and “The Dark Side of the Moon.”

While previously known as a classical studio, Abbey Road briefly ruled the pop charts. In 1963, 15 out of the year’s 19 No. 1 singles were recorded there. The Beatles and George Martin worked most of their magic in Studio 2.

The Abbey Road brand is considered as valuable as the studio facilities. The zebra-striped traffic crosswalk featured on the cover of the Beatles’ “Abbey Road” still draws tourists from across the world to that corner of St. John’s Wood.

The studio, which can accommodate full orchestras, evolved into a film-recording destination, where scores for movies such as the “Star Wars,” “The Lord of the Rings” and “Harry Potter” series were recorded.

The mutitracking technical innovations inspired by the Beatles now can be found on laptop computer software, making Abbey Road an expensive destination for rock musicians. “If an artist goes to a label and asks to record at Abbey Road they will be met with maniacal laughter,” a media lawyer told the Financial Times in its story on Abbey Road being sold.

Both the Beatles and Pink Floyd worked with the legendary house engineer and producer Norman Smith. The later rock star Alan Parsons was a staff engineer at Abbey Road who worked on “The Dark Side of the Moon.”

The Beatles’ satellite performance of “All You Need Is Love” (from the 1967 “Our World” linkup) was captured at 3 Abbey Road.

The Zombies recorded most of the baroque psychedelic classic “Odessey and Oracle” at Abbey Road while the Pretty Things created the rock opera “S.F. Sorrow” (produced by Smith). George Harrison’s “All Things Must Pass” triple album also came to life there.

Syd Barrett made several solo albums at Abbey Road. Later, the Alan Parsons Project recorded “Tales of Mystery and Imagination” and “I Robot.” Procol Harum’s “A Salty Dog” found the space for its orchestrations in the studio complex.

Other progressive artists making albums at Abbey Road included Kate Bush, Radiohead, Mike Oldfield, XTC and Camel.

The rereleased Beatles CDs of 2009 were remastered at Abbey Road, appropriately.

‘Crazy World of Arthur Brown’ returns

“The Crazy World of Arthur Brown” gets another shot at salvation with the release this month of a remastered special edition. The album includes a second disc of bonus material.

The hard-edged psychedelic classic returns Feb. 25 in the U.S. and Feb. 22 in the U.K. via Esoteric Recordings, which is part of the Cherry Red label group in London.

“The Crazy World of Arthur Brown” ranks No. 16 on our list of the most important psychedelic albums in rock history. (Read the full Arthur Brown review.)

The album is best known for the smash single “Fire,” with its blazing intro: “I am the god of Hellfire and I bring you fire!” The centerpiece is the “Fire Suite,” a side-long, five-track rock operetta once called “Tales From the Neurotic Nights of Hieronymous Anonymous.” (The rock opera king, Peter Townshend, associate-produced “Crazy World” with Who manager Kit Lambert.)

The CD initially came out in 1991 as a PolyGram U.K. import that, unfortunately, ruined the concept album’s concept with the appearance of four mono tracks from the album before the complete stereo version began. The 1997 release from Retroactive ran through the work before starting with the bonus tracks, which include the first three extra tracks presented here. Universal Japan put out a vinyl version in 2006, packaged in an LP cover.

The upcoming release’s bonus disc begins with “Devil’s Grip,” a 1967 single, followed by its B-side, “Give Him a Flower.” Then it’s “Music Man” (aka “What’s Happening”), the B-side of the 1968 “Nightmare” 45. (These tracks are not included in the 2003 retrospective “Fire! The Story of Arthur Brown.” The singer recut “Devil’s Grip” in 2007.)

Two songs from an April 1968 BBC Radio 1 session are led off with a short interview by Brian Matthew, the influential U.K. TV and radio personality who hosted almost all of the era’s major rock acts. (The five songs from this BBC session were previously bootlegged.)

The mono tracks of the Fire Suite return (marked as “alternate mono mixes”) along with a “first” version of “Fire.” A reprise of “Nightmare” comes from the unreleased U.K. movie “The Committee,” which features a terrific sequence with Arthur Brown (wearing a flaming headdress), the brilliant Hammond organist Vincent Crane and drummer Drachen Theaker (video below).

Here are the track listing, as provided by Esoteric.

CD 1: The original album remastered
Prelude Nightmare
Fanfare Fire Poem
Fire
Come and Buy
Time/Confusion
I Put A Spell on You
Spontaneous Apple Creation
Rest Cure
I’ve Got Money
Child of My Kingdom


CD 2: Bonus tracks
Devil’s Grip
Give Him a Flower
Music Man (Stereo mix)
Fire (first version previously unreleased)
Prelude Nightmare (alternate mono mix)
Fanfare Fire Poem (alternate mono mix)
Fire (alternate mono mix)
Come And Buy (alternate mono mix)
Time/Confusion (alternate mono mix)
Brian Matthew interview (BBC session April 1968)
Fire Poem Fire (BBC session April 1968)
Come And Buy (BBC session April 1968)
Nightmare (From the soundtrack of “The Committee” movie)

Strawberry Alarm Clock on Corgan label

The sound you are about to hear is the Strawberry Alarm Clock, still ticking after 40-some years.

The psychedelic-era hitmakers (”Incense and Peppermints”) are back in the music media with the announcement that they’ll be recording for the new label from Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins.

Keyboardist and singer Mark Weitz told Psychedelic Sight that the band is getting back to its 1960s roots, “trying to do what our fans like. … We’re picking up where we left off, but with a modern sound.”

The Strawberry Alarm Clock, which charted at least five singles in the 1960s, produced a more melodic strain of rock than the era’s similarly named acid rockers. But the group still retains a connection to the dazed days:

“We take listeners on trips in the form of songs — and gently let them down again,” Weitz said. “We create songs that put you in a different place.”

The Strawberry Alarm Clock’s new material is being recorded at Smashing Pumpkins producer Kerry Brown’s studio in L.A. and is in “the demo process.”

Weitz performed with Corgan at last summer’s L.A. tribute to the late Sky Saxon, and went on to tour with that nine-member band, called Spirits in the Sky. The Strawberry Alarm Clock is penciled in to perform “Mr. Farmer” on the upcoming Saxon tribute album.

Along with recording new music, the SAC is working on a project that combines material cooked up in recent years as well “revisited and rerecorded” versions of their 1960s songs.

Based on a sampling from Weitz’s stash CD, it’s impressive stuff, not easy to pin down stylistically. While the songs are all originals, you’ll hear passages that bring to mind the Who, the Beach Boys, XTC, the Beatles, prog rock and, yes, some old-school psychedelia.

“Everything we do we try to ‘Clock it up’ — our signature sound of catching the ear while doing something you wouldn’t expect,” Weitz said. “Our songs never sound the same — every one is its own entity.”

Original members remaining in the band are Weitz and George Bunnell (pictured above right) as well as Howie Anderson. They’re all writing new songs for the group, as is percussionist Randy Seol.

Steve Bartek (Oingo Boingo), who played on the first SAC album in 1967, had evolved into a longtime band member but recently pulled back due to his workload with Danny Elfman’s film music. “Steve will always be involved with the band on some level,” Weitz said. He anticipates a heavier keyboard sound for the SAC given its personnel shifts.

Other groups connected with the Corgan-Brown label are the Electric Prunes, the Germs (fronted by the guy from the biopic) and Fancy Space People.

Brown said in introducing the label: “We are very excited to be collaborating with amazing artists that have made a huge impact on the underground music world. … From the psychedelic garage rock of the 60’s and the punk rock insanity of the 70’s and 80’s to the post-punk Pleiadian power-pop that is now.”

The Strawberry Alarm Clock’s catalog albums are handled by MCA. Check out the Strawberry Alarm Clock website.

Furthur adventures of the Grateful Dead family

Bob Weir and Phil Lesh’s Furthur project is getting on down the road on its first U.S. tour.

The new band is warming up with an eight-night stand in Mill Valley, California. The shows are called “Live Rehearsal Sessions” and, no, you can’t get a ticket. The band even asks that the ticketless stay away from the town and the two venues.

The Furthur winter tour officially begins Feb. 5 in Miami and is scheduled to end March 8 in Portland, Oregon.

The band consists of Weir (guitar, vocals), Lesh (bass), Jeff Chimenti (keyboards), John Kadlecik (guitar), Jay Lane (percussion), and Joe Russo (drums). The musicians have ties to the family of Grateful Dead-related acts such as Dark Star Orchestra and RatDog.

Furthur debuted in September with a three-night stand in Oakland, Calif. They played New Year’s shows in San Francisco, at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium.

The set list looks familiar to Deadheads, of course. Songs so far include “Touch of Grey,” “Eyes of the World,” “Here Comes Sunshine,” “Brokedown Palace,” “Ship of Fools,” “Truckin’” and “Turn on Your Lovelight.”

Here’s a swatch of the Furthur New Year’s Eve show review by Garrin Benfield on JamBase:

This is a living, breathing band capable of rocking, spacing, and generating some serious psychedelic boogie. … The first half of the first set on New Year’s Eve felt like an old school Dead show, when songs were not all necessarily connected by long segues. … (The next set) was, with just a few exceptions, a gorgeously drippy psychedelic excursion through “Cassidy,” “The Wheel,” “Dark Star” and perhaps most notably, Pink Floyd’s “Time” from Dark Side of the Moon.”

Digital downloads and CDs of the tour already are available via the Furthur band’s website.

Mill Valley was selected, apparently, so the band could stay home, rehearse during the day, play the shows at night and sleep in their own beds. The small town, however, is having issues with the inevitable Deadhead hangers-on. The Marin Independent Journal reports: “Some see this as an economic windfall, bringing glamour and excitement to Mill Valley. Others complain that unsavory Deadheads without tickets have been trashing their downtown.” Weir and Lesh had asked fans without tickets not to show up, saying they wanted to continue to be able to play similar shows in small venues.

Furthur is named for the 1939 school bus owned by Ken Kesey and used in the ’60s as psychedelic transport for the trippy writer and his extended family, the Merry Pranksters. At one point, the Beat era heavyweight Neal Cassady was the bus driver. The story was well told in “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.”

Here is the Furthur tour schedule:

February 2010
5th: Miami — Bayfront Park Amphitheatre
6th: Orlando — Hard Rock Live
8th: Atlanta — The Tabernacle
9th: Asheville, N.C. — Thomas Wolfe Auditorium
10th: Charlotte, N.C. — Bojangles Coliseum
12th: Hampton, Va. — Hampton Coliseum
13th: Fairfax, Va. — Patriot Center
14th: Ithaca, N.Y. — Barton Hall
15th: Bethlehem, Pa. — Stabler Arena
17th: Buffalo, N.Y. — Shea Performing Arts Center
18th: Manchester, N.H. –Verizon Wireless Arena
19th: Amherst, Mass. — Mullins Center
20th: Utica, N.Y. — Utica Auditorium
22nd: Newark, Del. — Bob Carpenter Center
23rd, 24th: New York — Radio City Music Hall
26th: Uncasville, Ct. — Mohegan Sun Arena
27th: Atlantic City, N.J. — Trump Taj Mahal

March
2nd, 3rd: Chicago — Auditorium Theatre
8th: Portland, Oregon –Portland Memorial Coliseum

RatDog and the Dark Star Orchestra also have booked shows for the first half of the year.

‘New’ Hendrix album among 2010 rereleases?

A “new” Jimi Hendrix album of unreleased studio material could be in the wings for this year.

The widely distributed report came from London columnist Gordon Smith, whose online post mostly consists of a rehash of what’s already known about the Hendrix estate’s plans for the 40th year after the guitarist’s death.

“Incredibly, I’ve heard there is a new album in the works made up of unreleased studio material,” Smith wrote Jan. 6.

What’s known is that “definitive deluxe editions” of Jimi Hendrix’s classic albums will be released this by Sony Music Entertainment, according to the record label and the psychedelic guitarist’s estate.

The project also will include “never before heard studio recordings, alternate versions of classics, one of a kind ‘live and in concert’ performances and more.”

Sony’s “Legacy Recordings,” its catalog division, has done outstanding work on many of the ’60s and ’70s rock classics.

The core classic Hendrix albums — “Are You Experienced?” “Axis: Bold as Love” and “Electric Ladyland” — were last remastered and rereleased in 1997. “Band of Gypsys” resurfaced in 1998. These albums as well as some of the mountain of posthumous releases will be part of the 2010 campaign (those produced by the Hendrix family via the Experience Hendrix organization).

All music from the Hendrix reissues will be available digitally, according to the original Sony and Hendrix Experience press release of August 2009.

The Hendrix campaign comes a year after the long-overdue rerelease of the Beatles catalog.

Big Brother guitarist James Gurley dies

Big Brother and the Holding Company member James Gurley, once dubbed the “father of psychededlic guitar,” has died at the age of 69.

Gurley (center in photo, with Big Brother) died of a heart attack at his Palm Springs home, two days before his 70th birthday.

Big Brother guitarist Sam Andrew wrote on the band’s web site that “James was the spirit and the essence of the band in its early days. He showed us the way as a Zen master would show the way.” Country Joe and the Fish lead guitarist Barry Melton has called him “the Yuri Gagarin of psychedelic guitar … the first man in space.”

Gurly played on the band’s recordings with Janis Joplin, notably “Ball and Chain” and “Piece of My Heart.” His screaching intro to “Cheap Thrills” is among the best known guitar performances of the psychedelic era. Guitar Player magazine listed Gurley and Andrew’s off-modal work on “Summertime” as one of the best psychedelic solos ever recorded.

Gurley was a self-taught guitarist, who closely studied the recordings of bluesman Lightnin’ Hopkins. He moved to San Francisco in the early 1960s and played the coffee-house circuit as a folk musician, as did many of the musicians who would later shape the psychedelic “San Francisco Sound.”

“He was plugged into the early San Francisco scene before the rest of us were,” Andrew told the Marin Independent Journal.

Rock promoter and psychedelic music patron Chet Helms brought Gurley into the young Big Brother and the Holding Company, which built a following around his aggressive, high-volume, amp-abusing playing style. He was the band’s first star, until Helms imported Texas singer Janis Joplin.

In a Big Brother web site tribute, drummer David Getz recalled the first time he heard Gurley: “I’d never heard anyone play guitar like that, heard a sound like that. It was this frenzy of notes that took one to the kind of place that people like Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane were trying to reach, not something you expected to hear from a rock band.”

Rolling Stone’s Lester Bangs called Gurley’s playing “a searing storm of noise … directed (at listeners) with a kind of joyous fury.”

Big Brother as a band often drew fire for ragged playing, often attributed to drug use. Joplin soon left the group, taking Andrew with her. Gurley recalled the superstar’s departure as “a sick morass of disgusting slime.”

Gurley played bass in the post-Joplin Big Brother, which recorded several albums before disbanding in 1972. (The married guitarist and Joplin apparently had an affair in the band’s early days.) He joined Andrew and Getz in a reunited Big Brother in 1987, remaining a member until 1996, when he left on bad terms.

Gurley had a long history of drug-related problems. In 1970 he was charged with second-degree murder in the heroin overdose of his wife, but was acquitted.

In later years, he released solo albums (”Pipe Dreams,” “St. James”) and worked in new age and space rock. He formed a musical partnership with percussionist Muruga Booker. “I didn’t want people to come hear me play and want “Ball and Chain,” Gurley said of the solo works.

Gurley is survived by his second wife and two sons. Big Brother is planning a benefit performance for Gurley’s family early next year.

Pink Floyd performance from ‘67 unearthed

Rare and battered footage of the Syd Barrett-fronted Pink Floyd has been discovered, restored and will screen next month as part of a London preservation festival.

The performance of “See Emily Play” comes from the BBC One Music show “Top of the Pops,” which aired in July 1967 just as Pink Floyd was beginning its recording career.

Steve Bryant, senior curator at the British Film Institute, said: “This is an enormously significant discovery that will generate huge interest amongst music fans all over the world, even though the surviving material is in poor condition.

“Footage of Pink Floyd from this era is extremely rare.”

Bryant said his staff had restored the performance “as much as has been possible.” The footage came from a reel-to-reel tape held by a private collector, reportedly a rock star.

Syd Barrett wrote Pink Floyd’s first three singles, of which “See Emily Play” was the second, peaking on U.K. charts at No. 6. It came from “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn” album, largely made up of Barrett songs. The rock singer’s drug-fueled mental health problems led to his estrangement from the band and eventual departure in the months to follow.

The British Film Institute will show the Pink Floyd footage at its “Missing Believed Wiped” series screenings on Jan. 9.

The “MBW” initiative has unearthed some significant performances from the BBC pop music shows ” Juke Box Juries,” “Thank Your Lucky Stars,” “Ready Steady Go,” Oh Boy!” and “Top of the Pops.”

“Tele-recordings” were routinely erased at the time, especially those in the fading black-and-white format.

In other Pink Floyd doings, the neo-psychedelic band Flaming Lips will perform “Dark Side of the Moon” in its entirety at a New Year’s Eve show in its home state of Oklahoma.

The show at the Cox Convention Center in Oklahoma City features the Lips kicking off side 1 of “Dark Side” at midnight, with assistance from its frequent opening band Stardeath and White Dwarfs. Phish played the album in concert in 1998, Rolling Stone points out.

The Flaming Lips and Stardeath recently recorded “Dark Side of the Moon” for release on iTunes, with guest stars Henry Rollins and Peaches.

Follow this link to the Flaming Lips doing “Eclipse” on KCRW’s “Morning Becomes Eclectic” show (skip to the 30-minute mark to hear the song).

As for “Emily” …

Psychedelic Beatles rarities up for auction

What appear to be the rarest and strangest of all Beatles album pressings are coming to auction next week.

The story begins back in the twilight of the vinyl era. A Capitol Records employee who worked in the label’s Toronto pressing plant killed time by making multicolored vinyl records, colorful psychedelic things. Among them, appropriately, were the psychedelic classics “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and “Revolver.”

Canadian collectors Akim Boldireff and Aaron Keele bought the vinyl beauties from the ex-record presser, who apparently kept them in a closet. They said the presser had access to the original plates of the Beatles records.

Keele told the Vancouver Sun: “The real thing that makes this fascinating is that they were pressed at the original plants, using original stampers with the catalogue number of the original release as issued and created by Capitol Records.”

The eBay sale might have gone relatively quiety, except for the Guardian newspaper in Britain, which decided to dub them “the rarest Beatles albums ever.”

(This days after bestowing the title on an in-house version of “Sgt. Pepper” that had Capitol execs’ faces replacing the 1960s celebrities’ mugs found on the famed cover.)

Here is the Guardian’s description of the eBay goods:

“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band on bright baby-blue marble vinyl, the 1967-70 greatest hits compilation on swirled blue-and-white vinyl, and a translucent blue LP with side A of “Revolver” and side B of John Lennon’s “Plastic Ono Band” album. However, the most beautiful item in the collection is the Beatles’ “Love Songs” anthology, made with gold vinyl. This is streaked with an abstract expressionist rainbow, like an explosion at a paint factory.

Opening bids for each of the albums is $1,000, but this being the Beatles, look for soaring values. The fun starts on eBay on Nov. 10.

Psychedelic era through the looking lens

Two new books of photography have touched down to transport us back to the glory days of psychedelic rock.

Jim Marshall has been snapping the stars since before Dylan went electric. He’s published several excellent collections of his intimate work, and now comes “Trust: Photographs of Jim Marshall,” another gallery of up-close-and-casual shots of rock gods such as the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, Jim Morrison … all with notes from the photographer.

Get a preview in this Jim Marshall photo gallery on RollingStone.com.

Meanwhile, Zeppelin gets another going over in “Led Zeppelin: Good Times, Bad Times: A Visual Biography of the Ultimate Band,” just out in hardback. There are more than 200 photographs, about half of which have never been published. They range from the band’s first performance (as the New Yardbirds) in 1968 to the last (?) show in 2007.

Check out this Led Zeppelin photo gallery, also on Rolling Stone’s web site.

Photographs © Jim Marshall from the book “Trust: Photographs of Jim Marshall”

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