Baltimore’s The Peppermint Rainbow are right in the same groove as The Association, Harper’s Bizarre, The Brooklyn Bridge and The Mamas and the Papas - but if I had to more accurately describe their sound it would be Spanky & Our Gang meets The Lemon Pipers.
In addition to penning several hits for the Monkees (“Last Train to Clarksville,” "(Theme from) The Monkees”) as well as hits for other artists of the era (“(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone” for Paul Revere & The Raiders, “Come a Little Bit Closer” for Jay and the Americans), Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart had several chart-toppers of their own.
With its brooding and beautiful psych-rock sound, Canadian duo The Poppy Family could almost be called the antithesis of The Partridge Family and The Cowsills.
Mondays are guest entry day, and for today’s guest entry, my pal Matt Velky - who in real life is a record collecting chef extraordinaire - has shared this beautiful, original pressing of The Lollipop Shoppe’s debut and only LP, “Just Colour.”
In addition to a bunch of other crap things, 2020 also brought with it the loss of several music legends. Tonight, I've entered the vaults and dug out the college-era interviews which Eric Jackman and I conducted with 60s legends Ian Whitcomb as well as Chad & Jeremy. Ian passed away in April, 2020 and Chad Stuart followed in December.
William Oliver Swofford is what we could call a two-hit wonder, and both of those hits came from this debut album. His cover of “Good Morning Starshine” from the musical “Hair,” peaked at #3 and the album’s other single “Jean,” from the film “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,” hit #1.
Okay, so you love Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited” and “Blonde on Blonde.” You had the “Thing Wild Mercury Music” bootleg and devoured “The Bootleg Series Vol. 12: The Cutting Edge 1965–1966.” What if there was more Dylan *sound* from the same era? Well, if you don’t already know, tonight I’m going to talk about my favorite Dylan soundalike: Mouse and the Traps.
Taking its name from the 1944 controversial romance novel of the same name, Forever Amber hailed from Cambridge and after several years on the cover band circuit, recorded this one-off masterpiece for £200.
I think most Bee Gees fans would agree that it is acceptable to include this trio of stellar albums in one fawning entry as there is a certain continuity of sound that differs from the early-70s output and, of course, their late-70s disco sound.
Comedian Zac Amico tells us about only Weird Al record not to be reprinted in his career spanning Squeezebox collection, this record is a departure from Al’s pop music mutations as well as a collaboration with Moog synthesizer pioneer Wendy Carlos.
I later came around to this terrific album which Rolling Stone rightly included in its 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list in 2003. The sounds of the 70s live within this beautiful, and still working 8-track cartridge.
