Psychfan's Trip O' Th' Week© Dept. - Beacon Street Union

I grew up in Boston and I felt a flush of regional pride when MGM Records began a project that involved signing Boston area psychedelic bands (The Bosstown Sound). 

The thinking was that Boston was the East Coast version of San Francisco, an area with a large hippie population and the culture that went along with that. There must be a lot of great psych bands who can rival those of the San Francisco Scene (or so it was thought). 

This was not an irrational plan. Like San Francisco, Boston was (and is) a magnet for educated young people and the culture was there. What wasn't there was a Janis Joplin or a Grateful Dead or a Jefferson Airplane. Just as there was only one Motown, there was only one Haight Ashbury.

The plan to conjure another out of sheer will backfired spectacularly in the commercial realm, as is well known, but the end result was several psych LPs that are good, if not great.

 

This is an OK outcome from my point of view, as it means that there are several more good psych LPs in existence than there would be otherwise. Todays LP is a case in point. It features excellent psych guitar, good keyboard playing, lead vocals by future New England country star (yes, there is such a thing) John Lincoln Wright and production by Tom Wilson who deserves a post of his own (coming soon).

 

There are several theories about why the overall campaign failed. One was the smell of hype - The Bosstown Sound? Another, related theory was the idea that the bands were signed before thay had developed enough material to compete on a national level.

 

This one, for example, has psyched-up covers of Chuck Berry's Beautiful Delilah and blues standard Sporting Life mixed in with the mostly pretty good originals and the album as a whole is well worth hearing.

 

Second LP The Clown Died In Marvin Gardens, also included here, confirms the material shortage issue with a side long version of Baby Please Don't Go that you (probably) won't want to hear more than once. It does confirm the talent of the band, however, with several more good originals.

 

Farquhar Throckmorton III adds: The band changed their name to Eagle for a third album, the acronymtastic Come Under Nancy's Tent, which I've added to the downloads. Rumors that they were going to call it Vote Against Gangsters In North America are probably unfounded. A more consistent and focused album than the first two, it was too little too late. And it was 1970, which was a bit shit.