SHAGRAT RECORDS is pleased to
announce the release of ‘Jersey Sloo’ by legendary late 60s West Coast band,
Mad River. The release includes a soft-cover book and 12” 5-track EP pressed on
180gsm vinyl, featuring previously-unissued music by the band in a limited
edition run of 500 copies.
Mad River formed at Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio in 1965 and inspired what was happening in San Francisco moved to Berkeley in early 1967 just in time for the Summer of Love. During their brief time together they released a now highly-sought-after 7” EP and two albums for Capitol Records. The Shagrat release is a substantial addition to their catalogue.
Housed in the same sleeve as
the vinyl 12”, the 12” x 12” 36pp, full colour, mini-coffee table book features
a 26,000 word history of the band written by Ugly Things journalist David Biasotti, revealing many unknown
stories and details about this legendary, Berkeley-based quintet. The book is
profusely illustrated with many photos and other memorabilia which have never
been seen before, and tells the band’s remarkable history, how they were
involved in the emergent long hair
counter culture and the movement against the Vietnam War (then at its height),
their relationship with the Diggers and the Hells Angels, the Beat Poets and
most interesting of all their friendship and collaboration with the late writer
Richard Brautigan.
The band played all the
infamous psychedelic ballrooms such as the Avalon, the Fillmore and the
Straight Theater, sharing the bill with the likes of Country Joe & the
Fish, Phil Ochs, the Vanilla Fudge and Santana, who opened for them on a number
of occasions. Both their albums are now rightfully regarded as classics of the
era – their eponymous, intense debut album, more prog rock than acid rock, showcased the songwriting prowess of
leader/bassist Lawrence Hammond and the glistening twin guitar attack of David
Robinson and Rick Bockner. Their sophomore set
Paradise Bar & Grill was a
more relaxed affair and showed the band’s country and folk roots poking through
creating the kind of bucolic, rootsy feel that the Grateful Dead would capitalise
on a year later on American Beauty.
Acting as a kind of soundtrack
to the book, the 12” record contains five cuts that have never been officially
released before, including the four numbers the band cut in Dayton Ohio in
early 1967 as a demo before they re-located to California. These show that
whilst the band was influenced by the likes of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band,
Country Joe & the Fish (whom drummer Greg Dewey eventually joined and
played Woodstock with) and their friends the Youngbloods, they were also pretty
fully formed before they set off for the West Coast, as the embryonic
‘Windchimes’ included here testifies.
It was former Youngblood Jerry
Corbitt who produced the other long-lost gem from ’69, ‘Jersey Sloo’in this set
– showing that away from the long flowing psychedelic numbers, the band could also
write concise, accessible, two-minute rockers (even if the lyrics were
completely whacked out!). Drummer Greg Dewey takes a rare lead vocal on this one,
which with its overtly funky bass lines, might be considered a frenetic
companion piece to Country Joe & the Fish’s infamous ‘Rock and Soul Music’.
Release
Date: 12th December 2011
Copies may be purchased from:
It took nearly 45 years before Shagrat Records deemed the world ready for
these astonishing Mad River recordings. Limited
copies of this beautiful 12 inch package, of what is bound to become a future
collectable, can be procured by clicking here. The package
includes a beautiful 36 page insert with David Biasotti's 26,000 word essay on
the band and some rare photographs. British psychedelic artist John Hurford has provided some
beautiful artwork for the project and Tony Poole undertook
the audio mastering.
