Aliens Psychos & Wild Things Volume Fore. USA

Aliens Psychos & Wild Things Volume Fore is a bit different than some of the other fuzz blaster 45 comps I've written about recently. For this selection, we start in the mid 60s. Mostly these are forward looking garage bands with some guitar bite. By the time we get to the 1967 acts, the garage goes full-on psychedelic. As with every comp I purchase, there's that one single I heard on YouTube and then begin to look for availability on CD. In this case, the bait was Sound Expedition's 'Ultimate Power', a single I wrote about somewhere in here. That lead me to this comp, and the reviews from reliable like-minded collectors encouraged me to buy it.

As I do with all these comps, I research each 45 as I hear them. And once again, the obscurity level on these is incredibly high. There's also some unreleased material here, primarily at the early stages. One interesting notable - there's a band here called Groop Therapy (incidentally that's who is on the front cover - a bit reminiscent of the B-52's). And I swear they sound like a proto Stereolab. And as we know, Stereolab often referred to themselves as The Groop. Did they know about this ridiculously obscure band? Noooo. Well maybe?

One other interesting tidbit is that many of these bands are from the American southeast, Virginia in particular. Not the first region folks go looking for psychedelic music, but proved once again, that the whole country was turned on in the late 60s, and unfortunately those that controlled all missed it.

CD: 2007 Arcania

Another super compilation with full band histories on most the groups presented. And with a touch of humor as well. Also worth stating that the sound quality here is better than the usual scratchy copies that often make up these kind of comps.