The Acid Archives

Focusing purely on LPs, The Acid Archives, an extension of lysergia.com , is a 298 page book featuring information and reviews of over 4,000 albums, the vast majority of which are non-major label pressings.

Don’t let the title of the book fool you, while there is a good bit of psyche covered, the musical range is quite wide. A glance at the Acid Archive’s glossary reveals both the familiar (Garage, Freakbeat, Psychedelic, Folkrock, Teenbeat) and the more obscure (Acid Folk, Real-People, Busker-Folk, Incredibly Strange Music). What’s great about this book is that no matter how much you know about music, how long you’ve been flipping through stacks of records or how large a collection you have, there is bound to be tons of records written about within The Acid Archive’s pages that are unfamiliar to you. And therein lies a lot of the fun of this collection. It’s one of those books that’s great to flip through for 20 minutes or so at a time. As enjoyable a read as it is a valuable reference. Authors Patrick Lundborg, Aaron Milenski and Ron Moore along with a gaggle of contributors have written a truly unique volume. And while the meat surely lies within the A – Z Acid Archives, don’t short yourself by skipping Patrick Lundborg’s explanatory Introduction or any of the the appendices. You wouldn’t want to walk through the rest of your life not knowing the 10 most out-there records in The Acid Archives, would you?

It’s A Beautiful Thing

A rather shitty day was turned around by the appearance of the latest issue of Ugly Things magazine in my mailbox yesterday. I haven’t read a single article within its covers yet but I’m enjoying the growing anticipation based on past issues. Weighing in at 224 pages I don’t feel that you can rightfulyl call it a magazine. It’s a book, a tome, a heavyweight compendium of sonic scribeitude. Now I get to look forward to slowly picking apart the issue article by article, review by review. I truly dig Ugly Things and like to make it last.

 

This latest issue features The Music Machine, The Namelosers (You ever hear That’s Alright?), Part 3 of Will Shade’s series on Mike and The Ravens, an interview with Radio Birdman’s Rob Younger, The Dirty Wurds, PJ Proby, The Rubber City Rebels, The Attack and a ton more, plus more reviews than could possibly be good for me (or my music budget). Go grab a copy, meanwhile I’ll be savoring mine.

My New Best Friend

A generous birthday gift consisting of an online gift certificate led to the purchase of an ARTcessories USB Phono Plus. A great little USB audio interface with pre-amp that sports, among other features, phono/line inputs and a ground screw. Turntable -> USB Phono Plus – Computer plus some audio recording software (I’m pretty pleased with Audacity) and biff, bang, pow I was recording vinyl to my computer in no time… or should I say in real time… I’m not an audiophile and wouldn’t know the difference between Frequency Response and Input Impedance if they came up and bit me on the turntable, but I’ve been damned happy with the results.

V/A – Wild Things – Wyld Kiwi Garage 1966 – 1969

I can semi-honestly state that of the approximately 1,000,000,000,000 sixties comps that have been released since… well since the sixties,
that this one is my absolute favorite of all the comps that cover New Zealand and sport a day-glo op-art pattern emanating from a drawing of said country. Oh yeah, it’s also an excellent record. Released in 1990 on New Zealand’s Flying Nun label , Wild Things contains 16 tracks of sixties NZ Beat and Garage with nary a dud in the bunch. Highlights include How is the Air Up There by the La De Da’s, Come See Me by Sandy Edmonds, The Smoke’s psyche-guitar tinged No More Now, The Bluestars‘ Social End Product and Tomorrow’s Love’s respectable take of the Love classic 7 And 7 Is. If you spot a copy in the wild I suggest snapping it up. Wyld indeed!

Tracklist

1. The La De Da’s – Don’t You Stand In My Way
2. The La De Da’s – How Is The Air Up There
3. The Smoke – No More Now
4. Sandy Edmonds – Come See Me
5. The Cresendos – Now She’s Mine
6. The Action – I Can’t Make A Friend
7. Tom Thuimb – You’re Gonna Miss Me
8. Tom Thumb – I Need You
9. The Bluestars – Social End Product
10. The Challenge – The Crunch
11. The Principals – I Can’t Stop
12. The Pleazers – Hurtin’ All Over
13. Chants R+B – I Want Her
14. Chants R+B – I’m Your Witchdoctor
15. Chants R+B – Neighbor, Neighbor