Review: Various Artists ‘Brown Acid – The Twenty-First Trip’
If I’m being honest, I was curious to see if LA’s always‑awesome RidingEasy Records was going to continue its iconic, long‑running Brown Acid series. As documented here at The Sleeping Shaman, it consists of unearthed proto‑metal, proto‑punk, garage rock, heavy psych, heavy funk, and any and all freaky and/or heavy sounds from the ‘comedown’ period of the American post‑Woodstock, pre‑punk underground, between 1968 and 1976.
The series was the brainchild of Lance Barresi, co-owner of LA’s Permanent Records, and RidingEasy Records owner Daniel Hall, who made a mission of finding as much out-of-print, long-lost music from this Twilight Zone era of rock and roll as they could. Most of the artists featured never released anything close to a full-length, the only documentation of their existence being a 45, in most cases, self-financed, then shipped to local radio stations, stores and/or labels in hopes of landing a record deal. Additionally, all the songs in the entire Brown Acid series have by licensed by the original artists, or their estates, which speaks to Hall and Barresi’s integrity, as well as their determination to locate and release this music in the first place.
With the previous release being The Twentieth Trip, that number seemed like a good bookend for Hall, who has released all Brown Acid records biannually since its inception on Halloween and 4/20. However, it appears Hall and Baressi have much more music up their collective sleeve, and we as music fans are all the better for their obsessions.
The Twenty-First Tripwastes zero time getting started, kicking the proverbial door down with a blast of chugging, proto-metal from 1974 courtesy of Belgium’s Opus Est, and their manic riffer Maggie Johnsons. Freedom North, a female-fronted outfit straight out of Canada in 1970, deliver a driving, fist-pumping affirmation of a relationship gone awry with 1970’s Losing You, while the Accents track Friendly Stranger is a wild, psychedelic, garage rocker, lyrically warning young women of the obvious dangers of getting into cars with strange men in the late ‘60s.
boasting as much acid-fried ‘70s shred as one could want…
Next up we have Brother Love out of Cleveland, who, as it turns out, may have been better off staying obscure with the main riff of Rock N’ Roll Band, because I’m pretty confident that if Mick Jagger and/or Keith Richards’ had heard this back then, there may have been litigation involved as the riff is somehow a dead ringer, both tonally and in execution, of Satisfaction AND Jumpin’ Jack Flash. River Styx closes out side one with their weird and raucous Bike Writer boasting as much acid-fried ‘70s shred as one could want.
Maxx, coming out of Michigan circa 1969, gives us a mind-bending, fuzzed-up take on the decay of the American dream in 200 Years, showing us not much has changed in the fifty-plus years since. Pump, hailing from Delaware in 1970, might take the cake for one of the stranger tracks with the oddball, bouncing Kinda Like. It features some creepy old‑man/little‑girl lyrical content, which, I guess, reflects the innuendos and, in some cases, gnarly behaviors that seemed more excusable in the ‘60s and ‘70s than they would be today.
29.9 roll out a loose, literal, in-the-garage take on The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s You Got Me Floating, which is followed by a slippery, late ‘70s vibe that blasts off into space and back with Wakefield’s Here I Am. The Twenty-First Trip hits it’s come down with the aptly named closer Lazy River Blues from LA’s Peacepipe, wherein both the band and song title sound exactly like the music within. Tripped out, echo-y, psychedelic, desert rock, at its finest. This 1970 track conjures images of driving through the California desert with the top down. In fact, Lazy River Blues is, dare I say, one of the cooler tracks in the entire Brown Acid series, and the perfect closer.
As with the previous twenty releases, The Twenty-First Trip is good-to-great, which speaks to the quality of these compilations and the series as a whole, as well as both Hall and Barresi’s tastes and determination to excavate this music in the first place. This is now my ninth trip here at The Sleeping Shaman, where I’ve seemingly become the official sampler of this series, and I’ll be patiently waiting for spring and another dose of Brown Acid.
Label: RidingEasy Records | Permanent Records
Scribed by: Martin Williams
