Entertainment For Lively Minds
Those west coast harmonies
I was listening to my favourite album of last year "Butterfly House" by The Coral today. It is a real throwback to a sound that says late 60's in perfect harmony. I log onto to the old blog and there's "God Only Knows" in all it's perfect glory, a coincidence that made me think there is another large hole in my musical knowledge that needs filling. I own a Mamas and Papas best of and I love a lot of the Monkees stuff, it brings a vague memory of black and white pictures of skinny girls in flowery dresses swaying to the sound of the Pacific coast but I'm sure I'm missing a whole load of quality harmony filled, flower loving grooves that only you lot can point me in the right direction of. Help me find my inner hippy dudes.
The Coral "Butterfly House"
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Crosby Stills and Nash
Buy the debut album and the follow up Deja Vu and you have all you need...unless you like The Eagles (I do).
Woodstock, man, provides the evidence.
Peace...
Well,
here's my fave from the 60s:
and a more recent example of the genre from Lanarkshire's finest...
Try these...man.
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Love them,
particularly the Cyrkle track.
The Greatful Dead
Workingman's Dead and American Beauty both have
some great "fragile" harmonising.
West Coast influenced...
but also quintessentially English...
The 5D...
Super Furry Animals
Obviously not vintage harmony pop, but they have their moments in that area, amongst others! Including punky moments, electronic krautrocky things, welsh language folk-pop and lots of great (almost straight) guitar pop.
Here's one of my favourite moments, my wife walked up the aisle to this one when we got married.
I love the Super Furry Animals
We nearly picked Hello Sunshine for the music for our first dance at our wedding. A beautiful song. Funny too:
"I'm a minger
You're a minger too
So come on minger
I want to ming with you"
One of the greatest lyrics ever!
Love it!
We did have SFA as our first dance
It was Fire in my Heart
Wonder how many people have had that song at their wedding?
There's an episode of Torchwood that uses Fire In My Heart; Gwen is getting married and she's pregnant with an alien. The wife wasn't too pleased with that episode.
West coast sixties loveliness!
Probably the loveliest thing the Jefferson Airplane ever recorded - DCBA 25 from Surrealistic Pillow:
Moby Grape - Sitting by the Window, they did a fair few of these beautiful, dreamy numbers:
and another from them in a similar style - 8.05
Whoa! Gotta love the Grape
Of all the great bands that blew it they blew it the most!
Apologies for my earlier spelling of Grateful Dead.
I love this from Surrealistic Pillow
A generation on..
But there's always Wilson Phillips. And the videos are nice to look at as well.
More West Coast joy...
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And this is the one that divides people*. Yes, it is 'naif' but I love it, so fuck'em!
*old rock nerds on the net
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The Association...
...were soppy and completely wonderful at the same time.
(No Fair at All)
(Pandora's Golden Heebie Jeebies)
And so were...
...Spanky and Our Gang
(Sunday Will Never Be the Same)
(Like to Get to Know You)
Whoops! Zanti got in ahead of me with that one, but it's worth hearing twice.
Thanks Zanti and Inky.
Not heard Like to Get to Know You before, or, to my knowledge, anything else by the wonderfully named Spanky and Our Gang. Female lead singer sounds like Marilyn McCoo of the 5th Dimension to me. A quick googling reveals it's actually the intriguingly named Elaine 'Spanky' McFarlane.
a couple more
Fantastic stuff!!
I really like this rainy mushroom pillow thread
More West Brom
than West Coast but beautiful nonetheless.
The Lilac Time - It'll End In Tears
The best (East Coast) West Coast harmony track
Bollocks to all that 'guilty pleasures' nonsense; this a pop masterpiece!
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Sorry Zanti...
...that's good, but this is the best (East Coast) West Coast harmony track
The Tradewinds – New York's a Lonely Town
Can never get enough of this
or this:
Circulus
For freaky hippy / wicker man vibes, as seemingly recorded by extras from Easy Rider, check out "My Body Is Made Of Sunlight" for slightly creepy hippy harmonies.
New Scottish West Coast
Described as Teenage Fanclub's big brothers and the Scottish Traveling Wilburys. Cousti have the whole 70's Whistle Test sound down to a 'T'. And to prove it - Whispering Bob introduces the video. (Well it IS all about him).
You want harmonies? I'll give you harmonies..
The Alice Band. Should've been massive. Weren't. Shame. Pretty girls who harmonised like triplets, jangly twelve-strings, tunes..
3:30 is when the harmonies kick off properly.
West coast
but maybe not harmonies