Crowd - "Another Concert Somewhere" 1968-69

An attic gem released for the first time on media. Crowd is a four piece band from Denmark's little island of Bornholm, where the guitarist heard Hendrix, and bought himself a wah wah pedal in '68. This disc compiles a live concert from '68, along with their single. It's chock full of covers including Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love", and Robert Johnson's "Crossroads" done in the style that Cream does it. It's all heavy guitar driven rock ala Hendrix & Cream with lots of wah-wah fuzz and English vocals. Pretty good and truly a "lost artifact." Released in 2007.

R.I.P. Phil "Philthy Animal" Taylor -- September 21, 1954 - November 10, 2015

Houston Feerless - s/t 1969

Little is known about this Texas garage band. It is known that they are from Houston, and released this, their only album in 1969. Mostly hard rock and heavy psych in a kind of Vanilla Fudge/Steppenwolf style, at times with some really awesome fuzzed out guitar and organ, making for a wonderful noise. The opening track is an aggressive trade off with fuzzed out guitar and a loud ass Hammond and as an opening track, really grabs you and commands attention. Once they have it, trhe songwriting style comes in at a bit mellower tone. Contains an ass kicking version of "Race with the Devil" which was later re-written by Judas Priest, and a cover of Buffalo Springfield's "Mr. Soul" in an all out jam atmosphere. I'd really like to hear more from this group.

The Illinois Speed Press - s/t 1969 - "Get in the Wind" 45 1969 - "Duet" L.P. 1970

Originally formed in 1965 as The Rovin' Kind in Chicago, later relocating to California. The band was formed by Paul Cotton, later of Poco, and Kal David. According to Allmusic, they "combined elements of R&B and country music in a powerful twin guitar attack." Cotton and David have reunited on occasion to perform under the same name.
Back in Chicago, The Rovin' Kind became the house band at the Whiskey -A-Go Go, where they were seen by producer James William Guercio, who signed them to Columbia records subsidiary Epic records, and persuaded them to change their name to Illinois Speed Press in 1968. Norm Cotton changed his name to Paul Cotton at the same time, and the band left for Los Angeles.

With it's twin guitar sound, the band played a mixture of rock and roll, soul, and country music. In '68, they were performing regularly at the Whiskey in Hollywood, and at the first Newport Pop Festival in Costa Mesa California,m they also recorded their first single "Right on Time." The band released their first full length, self titled L.P. in 1969. Columbia simultaniously released Chicago Transit Authority, The Flock, and Aorta and marketed them all together as "the Chicago sound." All four albums entered the Billboard Top 200, with Illinois Speed Press at #144.

Before the album's release, the band's producer fired nearly all of the members and Cotton and David recorded their second album "Duet" as a duet with session musicians. The album was released in 1970, but shortly afterwards Kal David left to form The Fabulous Rhinestones" Cotton was then approached to join Poco, which he then did. Lynyrd Skynyrd has credited the band as an inspiration, and you can hear it within.

Universe - s/t 1971

The oft told story of this band goes as follows: Universe were a band from the U.K., and while in route to Norway, ran into van problems causing them to break down. As luck would have it, they happened to break down in front of a "music freak's" house and he took the band in, fed them, and gave them a place to stay for the nigh. This led to the band doing a recording session for the guy in an independent studio. Sometime later, Colors (the Label) found the tapes and the rest, well that's as they say history.
It makes for a good story, however how much truth is in there is for speculation. Either way, they indeed were a band from the U.K., who recorded an album in Norway, and released it only in Norway. Blues driven hard prog rock sounds a fitting description. It's a fairly good record, good writing and all, with both hard blues rock moments mixed with some prog structuring at times and minimal keys. One this is very true, it's rare as hell.

Prou Matic - "I is My Own World" b/w "Para Pa Pa" 45 1972

Psychotic, heavy, crude, psych. from Spain. Their description from the "More Andergraun Variations - Spanish Psychotronic Brain Damadge 1967-75" compilation CD, where they are featured with other garage, fuzz, psych bands of the period, says the song is from a nearly impossible to find flexi-disc. If the flexi does in fact exist, so does a vinyl press of it as well (as seen in pictures) As with almost all of the bands on this 'Spanish Nuggets' disc, all bands were on small, private labels and are among the rarest of the rare. Really not a lot of info on this long lost, highly obscure band.

Joshua - "Opens your Mind" 1969

When you think of 60's California music, Sacramento doesn't immediately come to mind. But the state capitol had a fertile music scene giving birth to mind-melters Blue Cheer who paved the way for Joshua. Fronted by singer Mick Martin, Joshua were at the center of a scene that, for the most part, ignored the 'flower power' shenanigans going on up north and worshiped at the altar of heavy Rock n Roll.

Along with other locals like Slo Lois, and Jericho (not to be confused with the Isreali/London band of the same name), Joshua created guitar lead, blues based rock music that sang about current events of the day. Drugs & war. While the band never released an album back in the day, they did record an albums worth of material, along with some live material recorded at some legendary live shows that took place at University of California at Davis. Anti-War lyrics that still ring true today can be heard on cuts like "The Fist", "G.I. Peace", and "No Country", while expanding your mind with drugs is exposed in the title track, "Opens your Mind."

With heavier guitar crunches like another release of the day, Stone Garden, and the band were good friends and gig-mates of Blue Cheer, which you can most definitely hear examples of within.
It was finally released on Rockadelic with a thick gatefold cover with liner notes by Mick Martin with lots of photos that compliment the full color cover.
This is a totally unknown band that should not be confused for other bands of the same name that may have released albums in the past.