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Thursday, November 15, 2012

Fifth Flight – Into Smoke Tree Village (1970 us, garage psych with fuzz guitar and spooky organ)



In the mid sixties, five football players from a local high school got together to Jam. The sounds blended and recorded an album for the Century label which was a late 60's early 70's Californian custom record label that pressed tens of thousands of small-run records for schools, church groups and obscure local bands. This was one of those delightful garage/psych jewels that occasionally cropped up on the label. 

With its rustic mill cover this a a garage psych album consisting mostly of covers, delivered with lashings of fuzz guitar and heavy, spooky organ. The stand-out track surely is the jaw droppingly awesome cover of Neil Young's "Sugar mountain". What you are hearing on this album are moods, transitions and feelings of the Fifth Flight.


Tracks
1. Can't You See (D. Knoedler, S. Denny, K. Van Ordstrand) - 4:51
2. I'd Like To Make It With You (David Gates) - 3:29
3. Devil With A Blue Dress (F. Long, W. Stevenson) - 4:09
4. Celebrate (G .Bonner, A. Gordon) - 2:06
5. Midnight Hour (S. Cropper, W. Pickett) - 3:42
6. Summertime (G. Gershwin, DuBose Heyward) - 4:18
7. It’s All Over Now (B. Womack, S. Womack) - 2:13
8. Sugar Mountain (Neil Young) - 6:10
9. Try A Little Tenderness (J. Campbell, R. Connelly, H. M. Woods) - 4:59

Fifth Flight
*Dudley Gray - Bass, Vocals
*Charlie Knoedler - Drums
*Danny Knoedler - Guitar
*Steve Denny - Piano, Organ, Vocals
*Kenny Van Ordstrand - Lead Vocals

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8 comments:

  1. What a great news Marios! Many thanks and good work!

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  2. "One of those delightful garage/psych jewels that this label is famous for."

    Pretty rare original pressing Century Records USA, 1970. of this fantastic psychedelic LP on the same label Search Party, Things to come, etc.

    FIFTH FLIGHT "Into Smoke Tree Village" CD (Radioactive)... digs deep to find lost records of the past and make them available to a fanatical bunch of '60s and '70s enthusiasts. Fifth Flight was probably a popular high school hop band. They were a bit luckier than a lot of other groups doing covers of radio hits in the late '60s because they actually got to record a whole album. Their set opens with a middle of the road original called "Can't You See?" The rest of the record is made up of pedestrian versions of songs like "Midnight Hour" and "I'd Like to Make it with You." It's too bad they didn't have a prolific tunesmith onboard to give them something to work with because they were decent musicians. This will enlighten anyone wondering what a competent group of musicians working the top 40 circuit in 1969 was like.

    Thx Marios.

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  3. Have to update my mp3 files with this flac. Many, many thanks, Marios!

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  4. Have Fifth Angel and Fifth Dead, but not Fifth Flight.
    Thx for this one.

    Hello to Adamus!!!!

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  5. Great album. Very rare as well. Thanks very much...

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  6. tkpyamamoto2529, "Fifth Flight" ...refly...

    ReplyDelete