814. this wheel’s on fire

In which Julie Driscoll + Brian Auger + The Trinity score a big deal UK hit with a then unknown Bob Dylan song concerning a burning wheel about to explode and other suitably apocalyptic stuff. The time was 1968 and it turns out the song was one of very many to emanate from what would come to be known as the Basement Tapes, the fruit of Mr. Dylan’s previous year spent hanging out in the basement of a big pink house with the band known as The Band, just messing around, drinking wine, having loose, sloppy, sometimes brilliant fun. And then, inevitably, tapes started to proliferate, such that some decades later, Absolutely Fabulous (the TV show) would have itself a suitable theme song.

JulieDriscoll+BrianAuger

1015. manic depression

https://vimeo.com/196137354

It’s been half a century since the Jimi Hendrix Experience dropped its debut album onto the world, but words still fail. Yet you gotta try anyway, so call Manic Depression pure truth in advertising. Even if it was sung in Gaelic, you’d know it was about the world just not being quick enough for the man’s psychedelic soul. Or perhaps the other way around.

(photo: Jim Marshall)

1086. psychedelic venture

In which The Ventures prove they can do psyche as well as the weirdos. From 1967, which means nobody seems to remember anything about it. And yet we do have this album as evidence. Gatefold sleeve, crazy shapes and colours. A few half-assed covers but it’s the originals that stand out with titles like kandy koncoction, 1999 AD (still the future back then), endless dream and, of course, psychedelic venture.