Friday, February 25, 2011

Hickory Wind - "Mr. Man" (1969)

Hickory Wind was a super-obscure Indiana band who released one insanely rare album (allegedly only 100 copies were pressed!!!). Taking their name from the Gram Parsons composition on the Byrds' album Sweetheart Of The Rodeo, Hickory Wind was very much of the west Coast Byrds-Springfield-Stone Country country-sike school. They would evolve into the cult psychedelic band B.F. Trike.

The oddest track on the album is also my favorite. "Mr Man" features a spoken-word vocal backed by a Highway 61-style arrangement, occasionally emphasizing a tinkling piano. The vocalist delivers a heartfelt plea to the Man Upstairs, hoping for divine intervention to save our troubled world.

"By free will alone we are under his spell..."


Saturday, February 5, 2011

Frank Zappa reads a Beatles radio commercial (1968)

Frank Zappa sitting in at KPPC, the legendary free-form radio station in Pasadena, helping out by reading a commercial.

You think record prices are high now? $11.98 for the White Album?! That'd be what, 50 bucks today...?