Received wisdom has it that the 13th Floor Elevators got there first with the term ‘psychedelic’, yet it transpires that an obscure band called The Deep allegedly released their debut album ‘Psychedelic Moods of the Deep’ for the Cameo-Parkway label just a matter of weeks before the landmark ‘Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators’.
If you’re already scratching you head about this enigmatic band The Deep, then join the club. I’d never heard of ‘em before either. However, a little research tells us they were a studio band, primarily the brainchild of one Rusty Evans (born Marcus Uzilevsky), a Brooklyn native and one-time Greenwich Village folkie (and peer of Bob Dylan) turned studio producer.
Evans’ strange story then involves him making three folk-inspired albums in the first half of the 1960s (all of which flopped) before a visit to LA and a chance-meeting with an early, acid-fried devotee set him on the psychedelic trail quicker than you can say Timothy Leary. Cue The Deep’s ‘Psychedelic Moods of the Deep’ and Evans had his fourth flop album on his hands.
Whether Evans was a natural charmer I have no idea, but he must have had something, because he talked his way into getting Columbia into bankrolling another album, his one and only album as THE FREAK SCENE, ‘Psychedelic Psoul’ which was released during 1967’s mind-expanding Summer of Love.
In a way, it’s odd that ‘Psychedelic Psoul’ should have again sunk without trace as it wears its’ psychedelic heart like the brightest tie-dye kaftan and was originally released on the same label responsible for The Byrds and Dylan. There again, it really is the dark side of the aural mushroom and most of its tracks veer from the merely odd to the downright arcane.
Although they’re hardly obvious FM radio fodder, the LP’s one single ‘A Million Grains of Sand’ was probably its’ best bet. With its’ primitive fuzzboxes, backwards masking and growling ‘Eight Miles High’ basslines, it’s not a million miles from Electric Prunes territory. Its’ flipside ‘’Behind The Mind’ is also quite strident and direct despite its’ ‘universal consciousness’ message, while ‘Butterfly Dream’ could almost be The Mamas & Papas after a bummer of a trip.
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Elsewhere, it’s the record’s inherent darkness which provides its’ best moments. Despite its’ flowery title, ‘My Rainbow Life’ is drenched in sorrow and could almost be the Velvet Underground, while ‘The Subway Ride Thru Inner Space’ is all scurrying rhythms and weird, radio mic vocals. Perhaps best of all is ‘Draft Beer, Not Students’, the record’s obligatory, anti-‘Nam statement, but set to a genuinely nervy shuffle of a groove and radio cuts ups which make like primitive early relatives of Byrne & Eno’s influential ‘My Life In The Bush of Ghosts’.
There’s some tosh to make up the numbers. ‘Red Roses Will Weep’ is a loose and wasted, semi-acoustic affair. ‘Mindbender’ is a disposable attempt to get as many things as possible to rhyme with the title (“September”, “coin vendor” etc) and the closing ‘Grok!’ is a thankfully very brief sitar and tablas workout. Plenty of drop out, but bugger all boogie, sadly.
That ‘Psychedelic Psoul’ is of its’ time is undeniable. It’s as 1967 as Haight Ashbury and the Monterey Festival, but its’ acid-fried dementia can never compete with seminal releases like Love’s ‘Forever Changes’ or even The Stones’ much-maligned ‘Their Satanic Majesties Request’. Before or after the 13th Floor Elevators, it’s merely a curio.
T-Bird Records online
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