Rowans - The Rowans (1975 us, beautiful folk country soft rock, 2004 remaster)

Progressive bluegrass group the Rowans consisted of harmonizing brothers Peter (guitar, most members of the mandolin family), Lorin (guitar), and Chris (guitar, flute). All three grew up in the small Massachusetts town of Weyland, near Boston, and played rock and bluegrass music together. Peter played with several folk bands in the New England area, joined Bill Monroe's band for a time, then teamed up with mandolin virtuoso David Grisman in the folk-rock outfit Earth Opera during the late '60s and early '70s. Lorin and Chris, meanwhile, teamed up as the folk/pop/country-rock duo the Rowan Brothers in the early '70s. With Grisman in tow, they relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area and scored a record deal with CBS, helped in part by an endorsement from Grisman's old cohort Jerry Garcia. 

The Rowan Brothers' self-titled debut was released in 1972, with Grisman producing under the alias David Diadem, and they opened for the Grateful Dead. By 1975, brother Peter was between projects, and he joined his brothers as the renamed trio the Rowans. Their eponymous debut together was released on Asylum in 1975 and received highly positive reviews for its progressive, sometimes jazzy leanings and extended compositions. The 1976 follow-up, Sibling Rivalry, was equally acclaimed, but most critics agreed that 1977's Jubilations halted the trio's creative hot streak. They subsequently parted ways with Asylum and issued two more albums on the small Appaloosa label in 1980 before disbanding to pursue other projects. The Rowans reunited periodically for performances, particularly in the late '80s, and in 1994 (as Peter Rowan & the Rowan Brothers) recorded Tree on a Hill for the Sugar Hill roots label. 

by Steve Huey

Joined by brother Peter and Chris Lorin Rowan signed with Asylum Records for their second outing, this time as the Rowans. Peter injects a bit more substance into the material, although it follows the same folk and country-rock leanings of its predecessor. Once again, Chris and Lorin offer a collection of sincere, tuneful, albeit slight songs, while Peter delivers three of the album's best cuts, including "Beggar in Bluejeans," "Thunder on the Mountain," and the near-classic "Midnight, Moonlight" (also released that same year as part of the great bluegrass project Old & in the Way and a few years later on his solo debut). 

by Brett Hartenbach

Tracks
1. Take It As It Comes (Lorin Rowan) - 3:22
2. Midnight-Moonlight (Peter Rowan) - 4:19
3. Me Loving You (Chris Rowan) - 4:04
4. Old Silver (Peter Rowan) - 3:02
5. Thunder On The Mountain (Peter Rowan) - 8:25
6. Beggar In Blue Jeans (Chris Rowan) - 4:56
7. Do Right (Lorin Rowan) - 4:15
8. Man-Woman (Chris Rowan) - 5:44
9. Pieces On The Ground (Lorin Rowan) - 3:54
10.Here Today Gone Tomorrow (Peter Rowan) - 3:42

Musicians
*Peter Rowan - Electric, Acoustic Guitar, Mandolin, Mandola, Mandocello, Tabla, Tamboura, Vocals
*Chris Rowan - Acoustic, Electric Guitar, Flute, Keyboards, Vocals
*Lorin Rowan - Acoustic, Electric Guitar, Piano, Sound Effects, Vocals
*David Hayes - Bass
*Russ Kunkel - Drums
*Jack Bonus - Flute, Saxophone

1972  Rowan Brothers - Rowan Brothers
Related Act
1968  Earth Opera - Earth Opera
1969  Earth Opera - The Great American Eagle Tragedy

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Rock Shop - Mr Lee's Swingin Affair Presents (1968 us, amazing folk psych garage rock)

Hailing from California, they became one of the most popular bands in the area, playing regularly at Mr Lee's Swingin' Affair nightclub in West Covina to packed houses. The band's one and only album, featured 12 self-penned tracks of fuzz-led blues and psych.

Despite enjoying a minor level of success including supporting both the Shirelles and Big Joe Turner, the band called it a day in 1969, leaving this lone recording as their epitaph.

This extremely rare album has a strong mix of psychedelia, garage and folk sounds mid to late sixties, given the high musical standard and excellent recording quality, still stand up amazingly well today. 

Tracks
1. Soap Suds And Cream - 5:44
2. Stop (Pat Edwards) - 1:57
3. Leaving Just Isn't Fair (John Dalbeck) - 2:29
4. Yes I Love You - 3:39
5. Bad Case of Booze (Pete's Theme) - 4:46
6. Goodbye Sunshine - 3:19
7. Why Not Three Or Four (John Dalbeck) - 2:35
8. Lay It On The Line - 2:46
9. Mediocre Blues (John Dalbeck) - 2:50
10.It's Hurting Me - 2:33
11.Look Looky Look (John Dalbeck) - 2:19
12.I Can't Go on - 3:38
All songs by Alan Clark except where stated

The Rock Shop
*Alan Clark - Vocals, Lead Guitar, Bass, Organ
*John Dalbeck - Guitar
*Pat Edwards - Bass
*Pete Stevens - Drums

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Scott Fagan - South Atlantic Blues (1968 us, brilliant mystical, mythical and deeply soulful folk psych with blues and jazz tinges, 2015 remaster)

Contemporary music documentaries are saturated with exasperating stories just like Scott Fagan’s. Recent cultural excavations have yielded new knowledge about artists like Rodriguez, as examined in the release of Searching for Sugar Man. An entire generation of Cambodian psych-pop music eradicated by Pol Pot’s regime was exposed to audiences far and wide thanks in part to the documentary Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten. The examples go on and on, but the necessity of unearthing undiscovered gems from the past is as much an art form as the gems themselves. In fact, that’s pretty much the storyline for how Scott Fagan’s overlooked debut was introduced to the world.

Upon its release in 1968, South Atlantic Blues, for whatever confounding reasons, dropped like a brick commercially, despite Fagan’s uncanny pedigree. Upon arriving in New York from the Virgin Islands at 21, Fagan landed a successful audition with legendary producer Doc Pomus, gigged with some guy named Jimmy James (later known as Jimi Hendrix), unwittingly sired a literary indie-pop genius in Stephin Merritt (they did not meet in person until 2013), and almost became the first non-Beatle to be signed to the Fab Four’s revered Apple Records label (touche, James Taylor).

Suffice it to say that despite these forces of chaos, they did nothing to lift South Atlantic Blues to the masses, and the LP was pretty much forgotten about very soon after its release. Enter pop artist Jasper Johns, who came upon Fagan’s album in a cutout bin some years later and, bewitched by the strength and wonder of the songs etched into the groove of this discarded unknown, set to creating the pieces for the series “Scott Fagan Record,” which hang in the MET and MoMA today.

There’s a bit of a good luck that set Fagan’s record in the hands of the folks at Saint Cecilia Knows and Light in the Attic—both arbiters of high standard in the art of the reissue. The story of how Fagan’s debut was ignored and rediscovered at random by a respected and popular artist is incredible, no doubt. In a bit of cruel irony, it’s the record itself that’s more incredible, by far.

Beginning with “In My Head,” Fagan’s conscious vocals command attention, ruminating on the hazy inner dialogue of someone coming into his own not just as an artist, but as a man. Fagan sings, “The city street show cracks like a star so I wonder/why is it so strange to rearrange the clouds over and under myself?/and I have always seen the sea as secret lover/but does she want the sky instead?/Oh no; it’s something in my head.” String flourishes and tasteful guitars accentuate the propulsion of what sounds more Motown than sacred psych-folk (as this release is widely incorrectly ballyhooed as), which is one of the first indicators of the album’s otherness. Fagan’s powerful vocal takes are the next.

Belting high in the mix, Fagan’s raw vibrato warbles like Bowie’s but rambles like Reed’s, painting pictures in words not unlike those his son would excel at much later. And while not all Fagan’s lyrical musings can be described as entirely legible in addition to being literarily strong, his striking ability to have injected vignettes of angst into Bacharach-like horn-heavy groovers like “Crying” ought to have endeared him to an entire generation of Van Morrison-worshipping peaceniks.

Interestingly, “Nickels and Dimes” predates Morrison’s “Moondance” by two years, at least in terms of release, and pulses on the same Pink Panther-esque menagerie of sultry horns and suspicious melodies inspired by Caribbean sensibilities and R&B swagger. South Atlantic Blues utilized plunky keys, warm bass and barely-there percussion to guide songs to emerge both as ethereal aural maps as well as perfectly unobtrusive melodic foundations for Fagan’s fanciful crooning. “Nickels and Dimes” is the opus of a confused spirit, bemused by the calling of his talent even at age 21, when so much of the world had still yet to be discovered. Whether those discoveries were made in quite the way Fagan imagined is a question this record, sadly, probably never prophesied.

If it’s possible to listen to this album with the context of when it was released in mind, when the Donovans of the world were sipping champagne from velvet slippers and The Beatles were still together, try your hardest. The story is great, but it wouldn’t mean shit if this was a work of garbage, despite its rescue from such a fate at the hands of Johns.

After listening to South Atlantic Blues, the likely thought-route is to ponder the whereabouts of the thousands of staggeringly great pieces of music, art, literature just gathering dust in a bin somewhere, and who might be paying attention enough to pick them up. Luckily, this one was given a new life, and with it, a new testament to the staying power of rebellious, mischievous, talented songwriters.

by Ryan J. Prado

Tracks

1. In My Head - 4:09
2. Nickels And Dimes - 2:18
3. Crying (Joe Kookoolis, Scott Fagan) - 4:27
4. The Carnival Is Ended - 4:07
5. South Atlantic Blues - 4:48
6. Nothing But Love (Joe Kookoolis, Scott Fagan) - 2:40
7. Tenement Hall (Joe Kookoolis, Scott Fagan) - 4:47
8. In Your Hands - 3:20
9. Crystal Ball (Mort Shuman, Scott Fagan) - 3:52
10.Madam Moiselle - 4:42

Bonus Tracks
1. They Think She’s Crying Cause She’s Happy - 3:41
2. When You’re Lonely And You’re Blue - 3:53
3. Bonua (Traditional) - 2:30
4. I’ve Been So Lonely For So Long - 3:31
5. All For The Sake Of Love (Doc Pomus, Joe Kookoolis) - 2:46

Bonus tracks not including on CD or LP editions, only as lossy format via label's download page.
All Words and Music by Scott Fagan unless as else stated

*Scott Fagan - Vocals, Guitar

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Various Artists - Brown Acid / The First Trip (1969-79 us, impressive hard 'n' heavy rock, 2015 digipak release)

After Flower Power and before punk, heavy, hard rock bands dominated the American music scene. In towns across the country, garage bands that had grown up taking drugs, flashing peace signs, and listening to the Beatles had witnessed the atrocities of Vietnam and Altamont, gaining a new perspective in a darker, crunchier, and more bombastic sound in their music. Bands like Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Grand Funk Railroad, and Deep Purple were blasting out of muscle car windows, influencing a new generation of jaded musical amateurs.

Some of these ambitious groups earnestly composed some pretty far out jams. Playing hard and heavy just like the pros, these bands were on par with their heroes, albeit with a much smaller budget and inferior gear. The 45s these bands produced, mostly independently, were glorified demos given to record executives or sold for gas money. Generally speaking, a few hundred copies were sold direct to fans at local gigs outside of any kind of distribution. These pressings have since become highly sought after rarities and fetch serious coin when they are offered up for sale. Hence, the need to compile some of this material in a series we're calling Brown Acid.

The tunes compiled here come from a time that's been neglected in the compilation realm. The purgatory that lies between garage and punk has caused these gems to go overlooked by closed-minded collectors for far too long. Expand your mind, embrace the bad trip, and follow us down a two-lane highway into the abyss that is the American Rock'n'Roll Underground circa 1968-1979.

CD Liner Notes

Tracks
1. Zekes - Box (Lenny Gayle, Kenny Gayle) - 2:28
2. Snow - Sunflower (Rob Russen) - 3:59
3. Tour - One Of The Bad Guys (Tom Sweeney) - 3:18
4. Zebra - Wasted (Timo Laine, Bruce Borden) - 3:55
5. Bob Goodsite - Faze 1 (Robert Bruce) - 2:14
6. Raw Meat - Stand By Girl (Raw Meat) - 3:10
7. Punch - Deathhead (Ray Kusnier) - 4:56
8. Bacchus - Carry My Lead (Eric Turner) - 3:28
9. Lenny Drake - Love Eyes (Cast Your Spell On Me) (Leonard Drake) - 2:53
10.The Todd - Mystifying Me (Ron "Sonny" Hrehovcik) - 2:51
11.Josefus - Hard Luck (Bailey, Mitchell, Turner, Ontiberoz) - 3:46

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