Japanese psychedelic ensemble Acid Mothers Temple (and their countless subsequent appendages) are the stuff of legend. If one was to assemble a who's who of the SF underground (or otherwise) music scene of the last fifteen years for an A.M.T. campfire story tell-a-thon there would be so much surreal-deep dish served you'd think you'd have invented a freaky new kind of supper club. But whatever their exploits, be it the creation of long-distance, guru-level tripper jams or the pursuit of perfection via stones, women and long-player records the guys (& dolls) of Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. always seem to me to be the closest I'll ever get to meeting, and I mean this in the most literal tense, a real life star trekker. They stop by Amoeba Music's galactic sector just about every time they play San Francisco (at least once a year it seems) and I cannot reiterate the fact that though they may share some resemblance to the usual off-brand Haight Street flotsam placed beyond the pale one cannot help but recognize the particular presence of Kawabata et al as a refreshing whiff of wizardry in the real. Check out what A.M.T. master shamans Makoto Kawabata and Atsushi Tsuyama picked up on their most recent trip below in this recent addition to Amoeba Music "What's In My Bag?" discovery video series, now with more Acid Mothers Temple!

Sometimes nothing brings more pride and satisfaction to the Amoeba Music experience than browsing the selections in vinyl new arrivals and finding a classic, diamond-in-the-rough title like Now by Kim Jung Mi and songwriter/producer/arranger/guitar shaman Shin Joong Hyun properly reissued with loving care!

Anyone who wants to can make an LP record! Yes, anybody, and it’s always been like that. Why can’t the world hear your creativity? Break out of those bedroom studios and living rooms and lounges and let the people know of your greatness! Why work all your life on your axe and never be heard by the masses? Who needs to wait for a major label to sign you to a rip-off contact? Call ACME Records and they’ll make a short-run pressing for you if you have the dough.  

Vanity pressings and small labels have always floated just under the surface of the platters you’d see in Billboard. My friends made some back in those days. Faces filled of hope, fame and just plain good-old personal righteousness. Words like “Real People”, “Outsider”, “Loner Folk”, “Xain Psych”, and “Steakhouse pressing” are just some of the many tags tossed about now about this history. And they’re filled with samples galore if you dig that sort of thing. Who doesn’t need a 5-second turnaround out of a live version of “Raindrops Are Fallin’ On My Head”?

These are not the Holy-Grail garage records. These aren’t the $1000 regional soul records. Just “real people" doing hard work and craft, and they're all available on Amoeba’s site to the first-come! Just click the title and see if they’re still there.  
 
 

Steve Jolliffe
Journeys Out Of The Body
Nada Pulse Records U.K. 1983

Upon hearing the news earlier this week of the recent passing in Finland of Kim Brown of the incredibly talented and way underrated Birmingham, England formed garage rock or "freakbeat punk" rock band The Renegades (as seen in video above doing their raw & inspired version of Bill Haley & The Comets' "Thirteen Women" - which has long been a favorite of my man Evan "Funk" Davies on WFMU) I've been going back and listening to that wonderful 1960's North American rock subegenre, that borrowed from the British blues rock bands who ironically in turn had borrowed from American blues artists, of garage rock which at the time wasn't even considered a separate form of rock. That happened after the fact in the seventies when it got dubbed "garage rock" or "60s garage" as well as such later tags as "beat," "psychedelic" or "psych," and "freakbeat" or "freakbeat punk" as in the above Renegades clip.

It was also in retrospect that I first came upon this wonderful music that many consider a precursor to punk because of its raw amateurish, albeit impassioned, adrenaline fueled basic rock energy/presentation with lots of distorted sounds and typically screamed, aggressive lyrics - just like punk rock. Like many other music fans, I first got introduced to garage rock courtesy of the wonderful Nuggets compilation (available at Amoeba) and the series it spawned (over a dozen Nuggets collections in all). Over the years there have been countless other garage compilations released such as the recent year release Who Needs Tomorrow? American 60s Garage Bands: 20 Rare Gems Compiled by The Bevis Frond which has a lot of unheard of under the radar gems from the 60's.  Like rap or soul or punk of bygone decades, garage rock was a prolific sub-genre that featured more talented bands that never made the charts than ones who did get some type of mainstream attention - if only fleetingly. Hence a lot of the music fell way under the radar (good because it never got watered down for mainstream acceptance) which is why there are not too many film/video clips available of most of this music.

I suppose it should go without saying that we here at Amoeba Music thrive on finding hidden gems buried in plain sight, but I'm just gonna go 'head and reiterate said statement, kicking it off with a completely enthused, rustic expression. Oh my lands is the recent reissue of the lost recording/private press These Trails record ever the very boon of my acid folk dreams! Resurfaced, re-pressed and well regarded by the good folks down at Drag City (it seems like I'm always tipping my cap at them, with good reason) this enchanting collection of hallucinatory rambles (circa 1973) is redolent of paradisiacal psychedelia espoused with that patent sundazed acoustic folk sound that forever seems (to my ears anyway) second-nature to native Californian singer-songwriters. However, there is no question that this masterpiece of psych/folk ecstasy could have been conceived anywhere other than its Hawaiian birthplace thus making it a top, if lone, contender for best literal inclusion into one's "deserted island"  fantasy list of music must-haves. The second song on side A, "Our House in Hanalei" being one of the most mana-licious, check it out:

"Our House in Hanalei" - These Trails


With a voice that seems to echo from the same otherworldly well the likes of Melora Creager and Linda Perhacs draw from, Margaret Morgan's melody driven yet free-wheeling vocal style intoxicates as it harmonizes with the smokey vocals of These Trails co-conspirator Patrick Cockett, mixing with their heady, hallucinatory acoustic folk instrumentation - an odd/complex muddling of dulcimer, sitar, tabla, ipu, recorder, electric guitar and then state-of-the-art Arp synth - to spawn a crystal clear yet purple hazy sound-geography that feels all together edge-of-the-map exotic and humbly homespun.