There is NO LIGHT at the end of this tunnel! BROWN ACID: The Nineteenth Trip fires ten more savage nails deep into the coffin of psychedelic idealism. These early local eruptions of heavy rock transform mind expanding ’60s love energy into toxic aggression right before your ears! The key element that makes this stuff so potent is that THEY, the bands, are in control, captured genuine with no compromise, right out of the gate. No doubt they had ambition, high hopes for the future and the moves to get up the ladder but if you take this stuff too ‘seriously’ you are utterly missing the point, it is beyond analysis, it is life itself! No amount of thinking will get you there quicker!
SIDE ONE:
DICK RABBIT “You Come On Like A Train” out of Bay City, Michigan in 1968 has cutting edge heavy fuzz sludge downer moves with killer invasive riff damage. Toxic to the max! Keeping it extra real, this band are three biological brothers, Gordon, Phil and Rich Thayer. Lyrics like “I can see things inside your brain” and “I can see things I can’t touch... give it to me!”... totally bypass romance, this is cut-to-the-chase girl grabber action with the cocky attitude only a young dude fresh on the hunt can get away with. To top it off the guitar break has full on echoey psychedelic Jimi moves.
BLIZZARD “Be Myself” out of Oklahoma City 1974 makes the case for toughening up attitudes towards society, how I live is “not yours to decide”... I’m gonna be myself, fuck off if you can’t dig that. Backup vocals repeating the title create a mega hook perfectly offset by the gnarly guitar attacks. One of the key elements here is the drumming, not merely keeping the beat, flying all over the place like another lead instrument kicking ass in a street fight!
FOX “Sun City - Part II” on the Studio 10 label out of San Francisco in 1969 is same year and label as the Day Blindness LP, both led by guitar/vocalist Gary Pihl. The vibe of the LP is surpassed here, stripped down to a two chord fried power trio stalker, in your face vocals, primitive guitar break with an arrogant abrasive tone. Gary later found fame joining the classic rock band Boston... this crude toxic burner is as far removed from that highly produced radio friendly sound as imaginable... it goes straight for the throat!
SWEET WINE “Bringing Me Back Home” expands the action here backwards into time. Bluesy boogie shuffle rock, on the road but needing to get back home to his woman. Issued in 1970 in Virginia, Minnesota, bands like this were sprouting up everywhere at the time like some secret ‘invasion of the body snatchers’ style plot to bring rock out of the pipe dreams of psychedelia and back home to hot ladies and booze.
ENOCH SMOKEY “Roll Over Beethoven” closes out side one with another dose of raw roots inflected rocking. They change it up in light of the times, 1969 out of Iowa City on Pumpkin Seed Records. The structure is retooled, adding a cool descending chord section to the break, lead guitar ripping it up throughout with wicked hard rock overkill instead of the usual Chuck Berry moves.
SIDE TWO:
FLIGHT “Get You” is a ludicrously cool come on song, vocals ridiculously to the point, guitars crunching it up. Leader Vic Blecman was in ‘60s garage band the Cavemen, a DJ on WGCL radio in Cleveland, later owned a swinging singles adult disco and also issued some wacky space novelty 45s after this killer erupted out of Elyria, Ohio in 1974.
QUICK FOX “Indian” from 1978 out of Berkshire in western Massachusetts has some psychedelic ‘60s embers still sizzling. The guitar attack flashes back to west coast cross talk turf like Moby Grape, Tripsichord, Quicksilver with dual guitar weavings, trebly power chords topped off by haunted dark melodic vocal arrangements. Gnarly but lyrical
guitar patterns hallucinate this feast right out of space and time, back into some bleak lost world that can only be escaped by letting go of the psychedelic dream the Brown Acid series continually sabotages.
BONJOUR AVIATORS “The Fury In Your Eyes” obliterates whatever mystical fumes are left hanging in the air from the previous track, shoving you headfirst into dive bar woman trouble. The guitar moves are raw, scattershot licks flying about as the singer struts his stuff and it backfires, he totally pisses off the chick he’s hitting on as indicated by the title of the song. They were on the Boston scene in 1976 alongside bands like the Real Kids and DMZ, throwing a dose of glam rock star attitude into the mix... the pic sleeve includes a credit for their hair dresser!
CEDRIC “I’m Leavin’” is a work of utterly primitive savage genius, not merely blowing groovy ‘60s hippie chick flower power love into oblivion... these dudes throw a wrecking ball into even the possibility of meaningful relationships! The Totty brothers, Dennis and Byron, issued this on local Tulsa, Oklahoma label Derrick in 1970. Later they opened for bands like ZZ Top and Grand Funk Railroad. BUT... wrap your head around this! Brash minimal intensity makes even calling this track a ‘song’ seem fancy and uptight. It’s a brutal semi-conscious rant fest that reaches the pinnacle of deluded confusion... the girl he scores at a party is totally destroying his mind!
ZANE “Step Aside” shifts gears totally from the brutal garage intensity of the previous track to bring the Nineteenth Trip to an end. Zane come on like some lowball sci-fi B-movie out of Malmo, Sweden in 1976, located in the outer limits of mad scientist lab rock with cheap electronic effects creating alienated futuristic prog space rock burlesque. It’s knowingly outrageous, the vocals intentionally wind you up into an ominous but hilarious sense of lurking doom!
