Live material from Bob Dylan – mostly solo with just acoustic guitar and harmonica! Titles include "Mixed Up Confusion", "Long Song", "Ride Willie Ride", "Can't Go Home This Way/100 Miles", "Turn To The Rain & The Wind", "Long John Gone", and "I'll Keep It With Mine" LP, Vinyl record album

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... 7-inch, Vinyl record

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Titles include "Soulin", "Thunder Island", "Night Shift", "Babylon", "Love Is Cold", "Happy Too", "Cozumel", and "Magic Moment". LP, Vinyl record album

The late 60s comeback album for the Fireballs and vocalist Jimmy Gilmer – a record that found the driving early rock rhythms fitting in very well with the light sunshine and psychedelic pop of the late 60s! The sound on this record has little in common with the early rock instrumentals that the Fireballs made their name burning through. This set is more of a catchy jangly sunshine rock record, with the tight Fireball rhythm section, plus some Stax-influenced horns, easy garage organ and keys, and groovy vocals by Gilmer. Tracks include "3 Minutes' Time", "Ain't That Rain", "Where Can We Be Found?", "Bottle Of Wine", "Mason Street", "Groovy Motions", "Goin' Away", "Barbara White", "A Girl As Perfect As You" and more. LP, Vinyl record album

... 7-inch, Vinyl record

Incredible early recordings by The Fugs – a set that captures the group at a time when they still had tremendous power and potential! The sessions were originally done for Folkways, then later sold to ESP – and the spare, earthy Folkways approach is perfect for the group, capturing them in a setting that's more of a happening than an actual recording session – a freewheeling hippie-esque party that's perfect for the protest and politics of the songs. Instrumentation includes a lot of hand-held percussion – maracas, tambourine, etc – and the Holy Modal Rounders join the group on some songs as well. Titles include "Saran Wrap", "We're The Fugs", "Caca Rocka", "My Bed Is Getting Crowded", "New Amphetamine Shriek", and "CIA Man". LP, Vinyl record album

(New Grooves, Rock) 12-inch, Vinyl record

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(Funky 45's, Rock) 7-inch, Vinyl record

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The classic debut from one of the weirdest concept groups of the 60s – a mime rock band brought together by producer Lew Futterman – who'd also worked on some killer funky jazzy sessions with Brother Jack McDuff! The style here is psychedelic pop through and through – and although the group didn't speak, they do sing (is that really mime?) – and work in a groovy sing-song blend of reeds and rockish rhythms, one that definitely has some of the same sharp changes and funky undercurrents you'd find in Futterman's jazz projects – although honed down here into much shorter Sunshine tunes! The album's a very unique little record – and oddly the group flourished for years. But somehow this first record has a charm that's really undeniable – and is maybe still their best effort ever. Titles include "White Winged Doves","Dream Of Tomorrow", "Pray For Rain", "How Does It Feel To Be Free", "I Ride To Nowhere", "Come & See Me", and "Jelly Jam". LP, Vinyl record album

The genius second album from The Housemartins – still as tight, sharp, and political as the first! Titles include "The World's On Fire", "You Better Be Doubtful", "We're Not Going Back", "The People Who Grinned Themselves To Death", "Me & The Farmer", "Build", "Bow Down", and "Pirate Aggro". LP, Vinyl record album

... LP, Vinyl record album

One of the wildest records of the early 70s – and it's still pretty darn hard to argue with the power of this one – even if the meddling of the producers are nearly as legendary as the album itself! There's still such a manic energy the original release mix – one that clearly inspired, if not altogether gave birth to the punk scene – and make the album one of those quintessential examples of great art being made under compromising circumstances. Fierceness personified! Includes classics like "Search & Destroy", "Death Trip", "Gimme Danger", "Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell (aka Hard To Beat)", "Raw Power", "Shake Appeal", and "Death Trip". LP, Vinyl record album

The second album from Incredible String Band – and incredible it is, a UK psychedelic folk gem that finds the group challenging conventions across the board – both artful and inviting, it's wonderful stuff! At this point, Clive Palmer had left, and Mike Heron and Robin Williamson contribute lead vocals with the additional vocalist Licorice also taking lead on a few tunes, the sound is fleshed out with more accompaniment and a rich warmth on a bevy of instruments – guitar, sitar, bowed gimbri, finger cymbals, tamboura, oud, rattles, flute, bass and piano. Includes the lovely and oft-covered "The First Girl I Loved", plus "Chinese White", "No Sleep Blues", "Painting Box", "The Eyes Of Fate", "The Hedgehog's Song", "You Know What I Could Be", "Gently Tender", "Way Back In The 1960s" and more. (Folk/Country, Rock) LP, Vinyl record album

Titles include "White Bird", "Bombay Calling", "Bulgaria", "Time Is", and "Girl With No Eyes". LP, Vinyl record album

Also features The Four Preps and The Piltdown Men. LP, Vinyl record album

Early genius from these Bay Area stalwarts – one of the greatest rock records of its time! Surrealistic Pillow is the second Jefferson Airplane album, but they took a number of huge creative leaps in the 8 months or so between their debut record and this one. This one is where they're joined by psych siren Grace Slick, but it's not just the line-up change that sets it apart. Surrealistic Pillow is a perfect title, as it's comforting and disorienting at the same time. It's also the magical confluence of wildly different spirits – with standout contributions by the entire band. Titles include the seminal "White Rabbit" – plus "Embryonic Journey", "3/5 Of A Mile In 10 Seconds", "DCBA 25", "How Do You Feel", "Today", "She Has Funny Cars", and "Plastic Fantastic Lover". LP, Vinyl record album

... 7-inch, Vinyl record

Includes "I Feel The Earth Move", "Smackwater Jack", "Tapestry", "Natural Woman", "Beautiful", and "You've Got A Friend". LP, Vinyl record album

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Heavenly dreamy pop – and one of our favorite A&M albums by the legendary Chris Montez! Chris was unlike any other 60s singer we can think of – an artist who was at once pop, but also had a unique depth too – despite a lightly floating voice that was really unique! The great Nick DeCaro arranged and produced – giving the whole record a breezy, bouncy sparkle that's completely sublime – one of those rare totally-perfect meetings of talents in the music industry that would never have the artist sounding as great otherwise. Titles include "The Face I Love" (a great Marcos Valle song!), "Nothing To Hide", "Spooky", "Where Are You Now", "Quiet Nights Of Quiet Stars", and "Look Of Love". (Vocalists, Rock) LP, Vinyl record album

A live counterpart to the first Motorhead album on Chiswick – a set that's got the same weird blend of proto-punk and pub rock – all served up with a bit of a hint of the style to come! The guitars are even heavier than on the studio set – and the drums are too – and there's a nicely muddy quality to the mix that makes the whole thing sound sneeringly wonderful, and which links Motorhead more closely to the punk generation of the time than you might expect! Titles include "Iron Horse/Born To Lose", "White Line Fever", "The Watcher", "On Parole", "City Kids", "Train Kept A Rollin", and "Keep Us On The Road". LP, Vinyl record album

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Mike Nesmith is letting his hair grow a bit on the cover of this third album with his First National Band – and he also seems to be opening up his sound a bit, too – firmly flowing into the expansive country rock territory he opened up with the group's first two albums! Nesmith sometimes seems to have an even more confident lead vocal – partly through a stronger sense of twang – and while he's written more great tracks for this album, he also opens the door to handle work by Bobby Whitlock, Nilsson, and Mike Murphy too. Titles include "Here I Am", "Propinquity", "Grand Ennui", "Texas Morning", "Rene", and "Rainmaker". LP, Vinyl record album

... 7-inch, Vinyl record

The jury is sometimes out on the Mick Jagger on-screen performance in the Nicolas Roeg film Performance – but the soundtrack is something pretty separate entirely, and really says a lot more about the spirit of late 60s Warner Brothers Records in LA than it does the arthouse cinema scene in England! The great Jack Nitzsche composed a number of instrumental tracks for the score – maybe his first time in this mode, and prefacing some later 70s successes to come – with titles that include "Rolls Royce & Acid", "Harry Flowers", and "Natural Magic". Other Warner talents get a hand in the music too – as Randy Newman conducted all of Nitzsche's charts, and also sings "Gone Dead Train" – while Ry Cooder delivers bottleneck solos on "Get Away" and "Powis Square". There's also some nice soul-based moments – the cut "Wake Up N*ggers" by The Last Poets, and "Poor White Hound Dog" and "Performance" by Merry Clayton. And yes, Mick does get to sing on one tune – the album's "Memo From Turner" – and the set is completed by Buffy St Marie work on "The Hashishin" and "Dead Dead Red". (Soundtracks, Rock) LP, Vinyl record album

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The last of Van Dyke Parks' classic early trio of albums for Warner Brothers – and possibly the straightest of the bunch! Parks continues the exploration of ersatz Americana explored on his previous two records – but his approach here is sometimes a bit gentler, almost sentimental at times – as if he's been pulled more strongly into the matrix of history and geography that's always informed his work. Production is still great – although not handled by Van Dyke this time around – and instrumentation includes a fair bit of steel drums, showing Parks' continuing love of the form. (He was one of the instrument's biggest mainstream champions in the early 70s.) Titles include "Soul Train", "Cannon In D", "You're A Real Sweetheart", "Another Dream", "Pass That Stage", "City On The Hill", "Iron Man", and "Love Is The Answer". LP, Vinyl record album

A gritty little gem in the Gram Parsons/Burritos catalog – mostly covers of classic honky tonk tunes! Many of the tracks were recorded for what would have been an honest, earnest, hard country album that was never fully realized – eventually paired with a few other tracks of similar vintage and some outtakes with Emmylou, then released as a posthumous Gram Parsons/Flying Burrito Bros LP. Gram is hardly acknowledged by the country music establishment to this day, but this set shows that he loved and respected the songs of Merle Haggard (Gram's supposed cultural opposite at the time, so little did the world actually know), Buck Owens, The Louvin Brothers and the endless lost highway of roadhouse jukebox classics – played here with a boozy after hours swagger! Tracks include "Brand New Heartache", "Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down", "Sing Me Back Home", "Crazy Arms", "Close Up The Honky Tonks", "Honky Tonk Women", "Dim Lights" and more. LP, Vinyl record album

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Maybe our favorite album from Procol Harum – a set that adds in some wonderful use of strings to the group's unique style – almost moving forward on the promise of the earlier single "Whiter Shade Of Pale", moving into much deeper territory overall! There's something about Procol Harum on their early album's that's really indescribable – certainly an influence from blues and roots, but this really striking step forward with their song ideas and overall construction – not into jamming or progressive modes, like some of their contemporaries – although they're certainly never afraid to rock – but almost this balance between personal poetry and brashness, with kind of a slightly creepy current at times – as illustrated beautifully by the image on the cover. Titles include the completely wonderful "A Salty Dog", p0lus "Wreck Of The Hesperus", "Boredom", "The Devil Came To Kansas", "Too Much Between Us", "All This & More", and "The Milk Of Human Kindness". LP, Vinyl record album

One of the greatest moments ever from Psychic TV – and a really stunning surprise after the breakup of Throbbing Gristle! Genesis P Orridge and Peter Cristopherson go in a completely different direction here – a mode that still holds onto some of the noise lessons learned in TG, but which also shows this incredible love of both more complicated pop modes from the 60s, and some of the farther reaches of minimalism as well! The album sports these tremendous ballads with eerie vocals by Genesis – including "The Orchids" and "White Nights" – which are both eerie recastings of an older mode of UK pop love songs – and there's other tracks that maybe echo a bit of Meredith Monk, or some of the underground experimentalists on the Lovely Records scene – including bits that have weird phone rings, dog barks, and other great touches. A spare and subtle use of noise and darker sounds wends its way throughout – but never with the heavier handed touches of later years – and titles include "Hymn 23", "The Orchids", "Botanica", "Iron", "Glove", "Always Is Always", "White Nights", "Finale", "Eleusis", "Medmenham", "Ancient Lights", "Proof On", "Eden 1 Eden 2 Eden 3", "Clouds Without Water", "Black Moon", "Silver And Gold", "In The Nursery", and "Circle". LP, Vinyl record album

Blistering raunch 'n' roll from Pussy Galore! They had pretty much perfected their mess by the time Right Now came out. The group still bring as much shrapnel-y noise and with all of the barbed ferocity of the meanests MFs in the darkest corners of late 80s indie rock – but unlike your Big Blacks, Scratch Acids and Butthole Surfers, Pussy Galore seems to genuinely love old school rock 'n' roll – even while they stomp it to death! A true anti-classic. Includes "Pig Sweat", "White Noise", "Uptight", "Biker Rock Loser", "Rope Legend", "Alright", "New Breed", "Knock Up", "Punch Out", "Pussy Stomp", "Trashcan Oil Drum", "Fix It", "Rancid", "Hell Spawn". LP, Vinyl record album

Post Pearls Before Swine work from Tom Rapp – a record that has him stepping out as a solo act, but with a feel that's quite similar to his recordings with the group! The mood here is laidback and slightly folksy – but also augmented more by piano than by guitar, and recorded with a watery style that works wonderfully with Rapp's sad-tinged vocals. A number of the songs appear to be remakes of versions from earlier years – and titles include "Snow Queen", "The Jeweler", "Rocket Man", "Sail Away", "Full Phantom Five & I Shall Not Care", "These Things Too", and "Grace Street". LP, Vinyl record album

Rare Earth get some super-heavy help on this set from Norman Whitfield – who wrote all the tracks for the record, and produced the whole thing with a thundering intensity to match his best work with The Temptations! Given Rare Earth's more rock-styled bent, the sound's a bit different here – but the record has an undeniably soulful quality that really makes it stand out – even amongst other excellent early work by the group. Titles include the super-extended jammer "Ma", which runs for over 17 minutes in length – plus great versions of "Hum Along & Dance", "Smiling Faces Sometimes", and "Big John Is My Name". LP, Vinyl record album

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Arguably one of the greatest pop albums of all time – a pure act of genius from Todd Rundgren, and one of the few cases in rock music where two records are actually better than one! The double-length set was Rundgren's third solo effort after the breakup of Nazz – but it's a broad step ahead from the first two, and a strong move into the kind of near-perfect, yet always-human pop that made Rundgren so great in the 70s. Sides one through three of the album were completely done by Todd himself – all instruments, voices, and production handled through the then-new magic of the 16 track studio – and Rundgren's really at his best here, working in the kind of personal modes that make his tunes so great, some of the best of the mainstream singer/songwriter generation. Side four has fuller arrangements and other players coming into the mix, but the core feel of the rest of the record is very nicely preserved – apart from a few tunes that perhaps get a bit too goofy. It's hard to imagine more great pop songs in one album – and the set's overflowing with genius moments that include "Marlene", "I Saw The Light", "I Wouldn't Have Made Any Difference", "It Takes Two To Tango", "Sweeter Memories", "I Went To The Mirror", "One More Day", "Song Of The Viking", and "Hello It's Me". LP, Vinyl record album

Heavy psych from Detroit, in the years before Bob Seger became a "lighters in the air" peddler of redneck theme songs. Cut from the same cloth as the early Mitch Ryder, Amboy Dukes and Grand Funk that were the hallmark of the Motor City rock sound of the day, most of the tracks on this outing are concise rockers, but the band delves into a bit of nice jamminess on side 2. Includes 'Tales Of Lucy Blue", "Ivory", "Gone Down Home", "Train Man", "White Wall", "Black Eyed Girl", "2 + 2 = ?" and "Doctor Fine". LP, Vinyl record album

(Funky 45's, Rock) 7-inch, Vinyl record

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Titles include "Hunter & The Hunted", "Colors Fly & Catherine Wheel", "Someone Somewhere In Summertime", "New Gold Dream", "King Is White & In The Crowd", "Big Sleep", and their classic "Promised You A Miracle". LP, Vinyl record album

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A really wonderful little record – by a group who should have been much bigger than they were! Despite the fact that these guys are an obscure rock band with a silly name, the record's a perfect example of the subtly soulful work that was coming out of various west coast sources during the 70s – the kind of album-oriented work that yielded gems for play on underground FM radio, but which has been mostly lost to the shifting sands of time, save for some well-placed rescue in the reissue scene. The gem on this one is the smooth stepper "Fazon", but the album's got a few other nice ones too, with a jazzy tinge that's almost in debt to Mose Allison or Ben Sidran – that kind of cool blend of many elements with younger ideas that was bubbling up on the Bay Area scene. Titles include "Dancin Wizard", "Monkeys On the Moon", "Sneaky Smith", and "Astronaut Food". (Rock, Rock) LP, Vinyl record album

This is the third movement in the fantastic pop symphony that is Spanky & Our Gang! The record's perhaps their oddest to date – and mixes groovy vocal stylings with some fairly advanced production approaches that work perfectly with the incredible songs written by Stuart Scharf and Bob Dorough. The voices swirl about in a mad rush – interweaving lines of melody and poetry, punctuated by strange sounds, spacey airy instrumentation, and wonderful little rhythms. Titles include "Anything You Choose", "1-3-5-8", "Without Rhyme Or Reason", "Give A Damn", and "Nowhere To Go". LP, Vinyl record album

A set that's got a slightly different vibe than previous Stackridge albums – yet which also continues that special sort of hard to define quality that always made the group so unique! There's a feel to the set that's maybe a bit in keeping with the image on the cover – slight touches of an older carnivalesque aesthetic, yet filtered through that cool British 70s production style – compressing any prog influences down to modes that often have some very slight glammy touches around the edges, which also steps up some of the hooks on the tunes as well! LP, Vinyl record album

Breathy brilliance from April Stevens – the sexy west coast singer who made some really wonderful records in the 50s! At some level, April was a bit like Julie London – in that she sang in a laidback, seductive tone that was quite risque at times – but she was also a bit more pop than jazz, and was always up for a catchy arrangement or a slight production gimmick to really help send over a tune! The title track was a hit single, but the whole album's great – and titles include "I'm In Love Again", "Do It Again", "Teach Me Tiger", "That's My Name", "When My Baby Smiles At Me", "I Want A Lip", and "In Other Words". (Vocalists, Rock) LP, Vinyl record album

Features flute from a young Peter Gabriel! Titles include "Time", "Katmandu", "I Wish I Wish", "Lillywhite", "Pop Star", "Maybe You're Right", "Lady D'Arbanville", and "I Think I See The Light". LP, Vinyl record album