The Almost Unbelievable Story Of Euphoria

Klaus at left, Otto right

The story of Euphoria is one of the most fascinating - and least-known - in rock, pop n' roll. In the mid-sixties, the Yggdrasil brothers, Klaus and Otto, out of Spindleburg CT, decided their music career would be different.

"We had this cough syrup we was fond of what was called Euphoria Patented Linctus," recalls Otto, "So we kind of took the name for this imaginary band we had." The imaginary band soon became a reality with the addition of a couple of friends, and they invested their gig takings into recording time. By then the friends ("lousy nogood bums") had been replaced. The album, Euphoria, was "as swell a bunch of tunes as we could come up with, ideal for radio play or mixed company." In spite of a dedicated window display at Spindleburg's  Irv N' Merv's Record Shoppe, the album didn't sell, so a rethink was necessary. Klaus has this to say: "We decided to use the name as a brand, and that every album would be different than the one before."

The following year, 1969, saw the release of Lost In Trance, which had a harder rock sound reflecting the amount of drugs they were doing. The two musicians hired for the project, Dibbsy Blake and Hy Afferbeck, were later found drowned at Third Eye Carp Lake, a popular haunt for Spindleburg beach sex enthusiasts. "A terrible tragedy," rues Otto today. The album attracted the interest of Capitol Records, who advanced the Yggdrasil brothers enough money to hire new musicians. 

In spite of being super-swell, the album A Gift From Euphoria failed to shift enough units to satisfy the label's expectations, and the Euphoria project fell apart. The Yggdrasils changed their name to Wachowski Brothers and the rest is history.

Otto, in toupée, left. Klaus at right.