Читать книгу The Mojo Collection - Various Mojo Magazine - Страница 92

Record label: Reprise

Produced: Dave Hassinger

Recorded: The American Recording Company, North Hollywood, California; mid-1967

Released: August 1967

Chart peaks: None (UK) 172 (US)

Personnel: James Lowe (v, autoharp, hm); Mark Tulin (b, o, p); Ken Williams (g, effects); James ‘Weasel’ Spangola, Mike Gannon (v, g); Preston Ritter, Michael ‘Quint’ Weakley (d); Richie Podolor, Bill Cooper (e)

Track listing: The Great Banana Hoax (S); Children Of Rain; Wind-Up Toys (S); Antique Doll; It’s Not Fair; I Happen To Love You; Dr Do-Good (S); I; Hideaway (S); Big City; Capt. Glory; Long Day’s Flight (S)

Running time: 34.43

Current CD: Rhino 8122748822 gathers all their Reprise-era recordings together including I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night album plus outtakes and demos

Further listening: I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night (1967)

Further reading: www.electricprunes.com (fan site); www.electricprunes.net (official)

Download: iTunes

Like many musicians of their time The Electric Prunes were not masters of their own destiny. The three albums they recorded in a mere nine months during 1967 tell a cautionary tale of what happens when a gifted band are subjected to the whims of an equally talented producer and brilliant, but erratic, songwriters. Although their debut album I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night contained material equally as powerful as the classic single from which it spawned its title, it had been marred by ill-judged gimmicks. By the time of the third LP, Mass In F Minor, the band would effectively be reduced to session musicians languishing under the weight of composer David Axelrod’s quasi-religious visions. Between these two extremes, Underground comes closest to expressing the unique spirit of a group who will long be regarded as one of the finest exponents of psychedelic pop.

The stunning sleeve shows the Prunes charging out of the cover, a forlorn face looming above them – an image whose mystery and energy are reflected in opening cut The Great Banana Hoax. With pounding drums and a pulsing rhythm as irresistible as The Byrds’ Eight Miles High, at its centre is one of the group’s defining moments: a plaintive organ note rises from the maelstrom and seamlessly gives way to Williams’s biting guitar solo.

Aided by producer Dave Hassinger, they created a collage of effects without swamping each individual contribution, and conjured an atmosphere of haunting melodrama. Lowe’s vocals wavered between soft innocence and sneering malice while the band shifted between the soft, sparse arrangements of tracks like I and the electrical charge of Hideaway. Antique Doll and Children Of Rain explore dark corners of childhood and themes of emotional isolation. In the hyperactive Dr Do-Good, Lowe’s demented cartoon voice was juxtaposed with a riot of distorted guitar; but the real treat comes at the album’s climax where raw punk and easterntinged psychedelia blend perfectly in Long Day’s Flight.

Sadly, however, the Prunes were running out of juice. The album sold poorly. They produced only one more single before losing control of both their name and their future.